Through These Nights
by Raphiael
Summary: Grado lies in ruin, and a small band of its expatriates sets out to rebuild. In the face of horrors both past and present, they must complete their duties and somehow survive.
1. Traitor

**Through These Nights**

Chapter One: Traitor

**Author's note:** So. . . I've never written a long fic before. Actually, it's been a while since I wrote anything long at all. I've decided to try my hand at this. Expect short chapters, updated sporadically. Warning for likely deaths and graphic imagery, as well as playing around with assumptions about the canon.

Letting me know how I'm doing would be great, because I've never done anything quite like this. Thank you for reading, hope you enjoy!

* * *

Hope, it seemed, was the most priceless commodity in a land as ravaged and barren as the remnants of Grado. Even as disease spread through the rivers and villages collapsed into chaos, it wasn't food or shelter the families scattered through the countryside begged for in their harrowed stares. No, they wanted someone, be it the Renais soldiers bringing supplies or the clerics bringing blessings, to tell them, "It's going to get better. It's going to be all right. All is not lost."

It was exactly the sort of thing Knoll could never bring himself to say.

Hope could not be backed with facts or statistics. It couldn't be found buried in a tome or written on a scroll. There was no proof that hopes would come to fruition, no guarantee at all. It wasn't for him to speak such things. He could never promise something so undefinable, so uncertain. All he could do was recite the ancient spells to slay the bandits that struck near-daily, wave a staff to ease the pain of an injured child, summon phantoms to distract the beasts that lay in wait for the dying. His was not a duty of hope. He left that to his colleagues.

Amelia seemed to always bring a smile to the faces of even the weariest villager encountered in the countryside. Quick to smile and make a joke, even as the horror of the disaster loomed so large in her thoughts. Cormag, broken though he was without his brother by his side, taught his wyvern tricks to do in the sky, just to brighten the days of the struggling civilians. Even Duessel was able to spare a few inspiring words, between his endless patrols of the nearby villages and training with the burgeoning forces devoted to rebuilding the ruined country.

Yet still, the face of hope, more than any of them, was Natasha. Natasha, who spoke of faith and heaven as she touched staff to broken skin. Natasha, who smiled radiantly even as her robes hung, filthy, off her thinning frame. Natasha, who spoke only of forgiveness, even as guilt for the destruction around her played clear in her eyes.

More than he hated himself for letting Lyon go as far as he had, Knoll hated himself for being so _jealous_. Irrational as it was, he sometimes wondered what it would be like to be regarded with those hopeful smiles, rather than the palpable dread he saw as he pushed his phantoms and spells out into the wilderness. But of course, dark magic was dangerous. Dark magic was blasphemy. Dark magic was the territory of men who consorted with demons, and his resemblance to such a consort didn't help at all.

All these things raced on in his head as he clutched the reins of the horse he'd been afforded for the journey to a desolate village on the outskirts of Grado, near the western edge of Za'albul Marsh. Reports came in early that it had been ravaged by monsters during the war, and the aftershocks of the earthquake had only multiplied their misery. It was a story the beleaguered group had heard far too many times. First war, then monsters, then the earthquake and everything that came with it. No little village could bear such hardship on its own, and so, again, they rode out, supplies and soldiers in tow. Every time, they hoped this would be the last broken village. Every time, they were wrong.

"Master Knoll," came a quiet voice from behind him. He snapped to attention, breaking free of the cycle of gloomy thoughts that so often held him captive.

"Ah. . . yes, Sister Natasha?"

She chewed her lip as she regarded him. It was odd to see her clad in riding clothes, still, though it had been a week ago she'd finally relinquished her habit and robe for practicality. White stained with red and mud-brown hardly seemed holy. He, too, had shed his heavy robes, but was still unused to the lightness, the nakedness he felt without it.

"Are you all right? You look pale."

"Don't I always?" he quipped, sparing her a rare smirk. Her frown didn't disappear for it.

"I mean, you look unwell. Moreso than usual. Is something troubling you? Are you injured?"

What isn't troubling me? he wanted to ask. He'd have to be among the undead to be untroubled by all they had seen. Instead, he shook his head, letting his long, pale hair fall over his eyes. "No, Sister, I am well. There's no need to concern yourself about me. After all, we have much greater worries to be concerned with, do we not?"

Her gaze shifted from his eyes, down to the ground beneath his steed's hooves. "Ah. . . I suppose we do have much to worry about, but. . . Master Knoll, your health is important as well. None of us can help Grado if we are dead."

He often wondered if that was the only thing keeping him alive. "I know. I assure you, I am in good health."

Though she seemed unsatisfied, she nodded. "All right," she murmured.

They rode in silence for some time, with only the clip-clop of hooves on dry, barren land to interrupt the harshness of the wastelands. As he often did, Knoll found himself watching her, studying the quiet determination in her eyes, the firm grip of her small hands on the reins. It was a strength he'd never expected in anyone from the church, never mind a fragile cleric like her. Then again, he was starting to think she was hardly the typical church type. Despite her initial misgivings, she'd never scowled at him for curling up with a book of the occult, or avoided him while he commanded the legions of phantoms. She seemed to offer him the same hope she offered everyone, loath as he was to believe in it.

"Master Knoll," she said again.

"Yes, Sister Natasha?"

Her voice now was quieter, more hesitant. He couldn't tell if it was the looming darkness and heady stench of the marshlands ahead, or if she was just afraid to speak.

"Do you. . . did you ever feel guilty. . . for betraying Grado?"

His answer was immediate.

"No. I only feel guilty for not doing it sooner."

The silence that followed his words persisted until the ruined village came into view. For the first time, Knoll truly felt like a traitor.


	2. Guilt

**Through These Nights**

Chapter Two: Guilt

**Author's note:** I'm really glad people seem to be enjoying this story so far. The feedback I've gotten has been really helpful. I'm hoping to go into more of an extended story, and the focus is probably going to be less on the romance aspect, more on the situation the characters are left to contend with. So, uhm, if you're getting into this story expecting magical Knoll/Natasha makeout time and fluff, I'm sorry. This will edge more on "adventure" than it currently does, though – I won't be changing that to "angst" anytime soon, I promise.

It's worth noting that in this story, I assume that the monsters that resulted from the entire Demon King situation are not all dead, and there are still pockets of them remaining. So yeah.

That's all! Happy (uh, maybe not happy, giving the premise of this whole story) reading!

* * *

Knoll's words echoed in Natasha's mind over and over again, mingling with the voices of the villagers coming, ragged as they were, to greet the haggard troupe and the aid they brought. Things had to move quickly. They had little time to dawdle, not when it had taken so long to get there already. She worked with the others to press supplies into the hands of the neediest, to fend off the ones who tried to grab more than their share. There was barely enough; as much as it stung her to pull back the second jug of clean water or bag of grain, it was worse to think of some other family going entirely without. Their supply dwindled quickly, as it always did – _just enough_ was never enough.

Supplies, of course, were only part of the reason for their arrival. More than food and drink, the people seemed to crave some kind of hope. It wasn't something Natasha had much of anymore, and she suspected, by the stretches of silence on their treks together, that the others were running out as well. Still, even a false smile seemed to work wonders; even the tritest prayers elicited gasps of praise. Even if there was barely a scrap of faith behind it all, it was the least she could offer.

"_I only feel guilty for not doing it sooner."_

She couldn't shake the feeling that he had spoken more about her than himself.

_You should have noticed more quickly. You should have gone faster. You should have done something. Instead you just ran away._

She shook the feeling off, as she did every other time it came up. Guilt would help no one now.

"Is anyone in need of healing?" she asked, forcing her small voice to carry over the crowds. People began to call out, speaking of the sick and injured left in the houses ahead, and she rummaged through the supplies to fetch her books and staffs.

"Master Knoll," she called. "Are you coming?"

As usual, he'd done what he could to help distribute food and water, keeping his own musty tomes tucked far in the back of the supply caravan lest someone spot them. Still, the people seemed keen on dealing with him as little as possible. It wasn't quite as bad as it had been when he still wore his telltale dark robes, but the crackle of strange magic about him remained, and the people of Grado knew that feeling all too well. Oddly enough, he never seemed to mind the way their hands carefully avoided his, the way their gaze never quite met his face. She doubted she could accept such things herself.

"Of course I'm coming," he said, handing over the last of the water to shriveled, hunkering woman clad in gray. He offered her a shaky smile, one Natasha knew quite well as dishonest, but was met with only a stare before the woman shuffled away. Knoll shrugged and reached for his own supplies. "Let's go, then."

The first house was just inside the borders of the village, a tiny thing with a sagging thatched roof and a yellowing garden just outside the door. Unlike so many other places they'd visited, nearly all of the houses were left standing, but collapsing buildings weren't the only problem the quake had caused. The smell of vegetable soup and chamomile wafted through the door as it was opened and the mages were led inside by the man who'd requested their aid.

"This way."

Natasha assumed at first that it would be the man's wife. He seemed too young for children, despite the lines on his face and dark rings around his eyes, perhaps only because such things had become commonplace. The shrunken, pale figure sprawled across the bed before her told her otherwise.

The boy's eyes, the color of dying grass, seemed too large for his gaunt face. His hair clung to the sweat of his forehead in sticky blonde-brown clumps, and trembled with every rattling gasp the boy took. He stared at her, though he did not seem to truly see.

"A bael?" Knoll asked the father. There was a nod, and a gesture to the boy's arm, which was nearly black. Beyond help – the venom would easily kill a child within two days without treatment. Natasha thought back to the day they'd taken to rest, and silently promised to never take one again.

"We understand," Natasha said. "Please, it would be best for you to leave while we try to treat him."

The father nodded and left them alone in the silence, disturbed only by the _gasp, shudder, wheeze_ of the child.

"There's nothing to be done," Knoll said at last. "We've tried before, and. . . we don't have the supplies to spare on someone who'll die anyway."

Natasha knew he was right. Perhaps it would have been different, were it not for the message they'd received at the township before this one, stamped with the seal of Renais.

_It is with my deepest regrets that I inform you that Renais will cease all further supply shipments to Grado. The need in our own kingdom is far too great._

Simple, plain, informal, and signed with the new king's hasty hand. She had never known that letters could sound so _tired._

"I know," she murmured. "At least. . . we can ease his pain a bit. We have enough for that, don't we?"

Knoll regarded the child with a frown, and Natasha wondered if he was calculating their remaining stores. "We do. You tend to that. I will tell his father."

Terrible as it was, Natasha was grateful for that. She reached for her staff and began her work, humming an old lullaby as she did, even though the child was probably too far gone to hear her.

It wasn't long after the boy was asleep that she heard the shouts of anguish, doors shrieking open, the man plowing into the room .

"You _have _to help him! You're a cleric, aren't you? I've already lost my wife, isn't that enough?" And she readied the same explanations she did every time, and as always, they fell flat against everything.

"We're sorry," Knoll said, for what must have been the hundredth time, before grabbing Natasha's arm and finally pulling her out. They had other work to be done, other people to try to save.

* * *

Night found Natasha in they'd been spared a room at the village's inn. Duessel and Cormag had not yet returned, and Amelia was already asleep. She watched as Knoll gathered his books to keep watch at the edge of the village, and finally found the courage to speak.

"Master Knoll."

He looked to her, but said nothing, focusing instead on his tomes.

"That boy. Didn't. . . didn't he look a bit like Franz?"

He chewed his lip, presumably trying to remember, before giving a small nod. "Just a bit, yes."

So it wasn't just her imagination. Or, perhaps he was just humoring her. That seemed to be the case, as he spoke no further until his books were packed and he was nearly out the door.

"Sister Natasha?"

She sat up with a jolt, half expecting some snide remark about seeing the faces of dead knights on little boys. "Yes?"

"Please, stop calling me 'master'. I am just a scholar. Nothing more."

And then he was gone.


	3. Inaction

**Through These Nights**

Chapter Three: Inaction

**Author's note:** What, what, a longer chapter? With even some fluff? And exposition? And. . . and. . . oh lawd, is that something vaguely resembling _plot movement?_ This is a sure sign of ruin.

Uh, yeah. Nothing else new to say, except for thanks for reading/reviewing/all those other awesome things you do. Yes, you. And if you have any suggestions/questions/comments/whatever about the story, feel free to drop me a line.

Also, I'm giving titles to chapters now. Yay.

* * *

"Thrust, parry, duck – that's it, faster, don't slow down now!"

Duessel watched from a distance as Cormag barked instructions to the able-bodied villagers, each armed with a basic sword. The lad was an exemplary teacher, far better than the general had expected. He spotted some of his own technique in the way Cormag corrected his students' posture and gave small nods of encouragement before quickly returning to the routine.

The older man had let Cormag take over the training from time to time, and he was glad for it. As wonderful as it was to be back in his element instead of leading troops into death, it was even better to see someone new finding his calling, even if it was someone who still seemed unsure when fighting on the ground. The only one who seemed truly displeased with the arrangement was Genarog, who occasionally let out heavy sighs and snapped his teeth in the direction of the training fields.

"Nothing out in those woods is going to spare you if you falter. Keep at it!"

It was a truth Duessel had always tried to impress on every villager he met, especially in the outskirts of the country. They couldn't possibly stay to fend off the monsters still lurking in the marshes and forests. At best, they had a week for each village, just enough time to teach basic defense to people who'd known peace for most of their lives. Killing a bonewalker or mauthe doog was nothing like hunting deer or rabbits. Far too many had died thinking it might be, in the months since the quake. Before then, the creatures had stayed mostly to the outskirts, but now it seemed they were everywhere.

"Keep at it!" Cormag repeated, louder now. The ragtag group of villagers did just that, swinging their swords as demonstrated despite the chill rising in the night air. Duessel smiled faintly as he stepped in to correct a young man's stance, prompting a snort from the abandoned wyvern on the sidelines.

A week wasn't long enough to do much more than teach the basics. Then again, even with more time, some would probably never pick it up. Duessel knew this much from experience. He'd tried too many times to put a sword in Natasha's hands, just for defensive purposes in case her spells should fail, or push a lance on Knoll to toughen the boy up. The former had only poked at the blade in distaste; the latter nearly toppled over trying to keep hold of the weapon. Some things, he supposed, were simply not meant to be. Not everyone was as eager to learn as Amelia, who was out riding the perimeter of the village.

As he watched Cormag help a struggling villager execute an effective blow, he wondered if the lad would ever learn the same thing. If his repeated insistence on trying to teach Knoll how to ride a wyvern was any indication, it would take some time – though Duessel couldn't honestly say he hadn't been amused by the look on the scholar's pale face when he finally reached the ground again.

"I think that's enough for tonight, Cormag," he called at last. As precious as time was, there was only so much progress one night could bring. Cormag gave a nod and called out an order to meet again at daybreak, before coming over to join Duessel and his mount. Genarog narrowed his eyes for just a moment in protest at the neglect, but finally stopped snorting and sighing as Cormag returned his glare with a stern frown.

"They seem to be in better shape than the last place," the younger man noted. "I think they'll be fine, with a bit more training. Is Rausten sending any more bishops this way?"

Duessel shook his head. "They're stretched too thin already, between their own affairs and the problems closer to their borders. There simply aren't enough to spare, and even if they were, the journey is a dangerous one. I do not fault them."

Cormag grimaced, but nodded. It was hardly a surprise at this point, to find that their efforts would not be aided. It had been over a year since the funeral of emperor and prince, but wounds like those caused by the war would take far longer to heal. Renais was still struggling to rebuild, and it was far easier to justify aid to a victim than to an aggressor.

_This is the fate of fools who consort with demons_, he'd heard one foreign cleric murmur to another, as she treated the wounds of commoners in a city further south. He'd barely resisted the urge to strike her and bellow curses in her face, a sort of violence he never wished to display again. The fate of the fool who consorted with demons was an honorable funeral insisted upon by the royals of Renais, and the bliss of never truly knowing the chaos his country had been thrust into. The fate of the innocent, as far as Duessel could see, was too often worse.

His thoughts were interrupted as the clamor of hooves on earth approached, far more frenzied than Amelia's usual pace.

"General Duessel, there's a breach at the north side of the village – "

It was clear immediately what sort of "breach" this was. "How many?" he asked quickly.

"I couldn't count, but Knoll was there already. He sent me to get help."

The villagers were nowhere near prepared enough to face this, of course. "Fetch Natasha. Cormag-"

Cormag was already atop Genarog, spear in hand. This was far too routine to be alien to him, or any of them. The beast took flight, and Duessel's steed set out behind it. There was no time to spare. There never was.

* * *

There had been a time when Knoll had not feared the dead eyes of his tutor's phantoms, or shuddered when they came near. They had been curiosities, specimens to be studied. Back then, there was no way looking at them would remind him of dead kings, or that their smell would bring thoughts of the wretched breath of half-rotten dragons. Such things were once relegated to legend. No longer, of course.

He knew, looking at the number of beasts he spied at the edge of the woods and coming toward him, that his magic alone was not enough. Even with the phantoms, he would not last long. They'd never encountered a horde so large since setting out to restore the former empire, at least, not all at once.

He swallowed his terror and closed his eyes, envisioning the creatures he wished to create. They were different than the ones who used to patrol the area: lither, faster, with strong grips on their weapons and dead eyes fixed on the enemy. He prayed they'd be enough distraction to extend his borrowed time just a bit longer, at least long enough to keep the village safe.

An arrow whizzed past his ear, missing by less than an inch, as he grabbed for his tomes and tried to remember the name for each of the beasts from his textbooks, if only to calm himself down. _Deathgoyle. Mogall. Dwight – _

He couldn't put a name to the creature that sprang past his phantoms and pinned him to the ground, ragged teeth bared, before he could even begin to chant a spell.

_Always so slow, Knoll_. A taunt he'd heard too many times. He lifted the book and smashed it over the beast's head. As it howled in shock, he took the opportunity to roll away and finish the chant, looking away as his magic consumed the enemy.

_You should have asked Amelia to stay. You're going to die here_.

No, he couldn't have asked her to do that. If she hadn't gone, they'd both have died, and the village would be ravaged before any of the others could even catch on. It hadn't been an option.

Knoll cringed as one of the phantoms faded into the night, the arrow that eliminated it falling silently to the ground. His chanting, this time, was able to take the creature responsible out, and then three more in its vicinity. His energy was running low, too low to even think about replacing the phantoms who died just as quickly and silently as they were born.

_You're going to die here_, he thought again. _As you should have, back then – _

He quickly shut out those thoughts and began, again, to chant his spells, barely dodging the arrows and spears and fangs that kept coming at him. Just a while longer. He had to hold out, just a while longer –

The sound came first. The _squelch_ of heavy blade splaying flesh wide open, the _crack_ of bone breaking. The sound of his own scream, shamefully shrill and strangled. The crash of his books hitting the ground just before his body did. The pain only hit him then, a kind of tearing feeling, perhaps like the hideous cousin of the ache in his arm after trying, and failing, to lift Duessel's ridiculous lance. He was dimly aware that he was still screaming, that his sleeve was hot and sticky with blood, that the shaking hand he had pressed to the gash did nothing to stop it. And finally, for just a moment, vision came – the sight of a gigantic creature, almost humanoid, were it not for the lower half of its body, raising its bloodied axe for another blow.

He remembered it clearly from the illustrations he'd pored over in the castle library - illustrations of creatures that were only supposed to exist in fairy tales. _Maeldiun_, he thought, before his world went dark.


	4. Grief

**Through These Nights**

Chapter Four: Grief

**Author's note:** Thank you to everyone who's been following and recommending this story. The continued support really means a lot to me.

You may have noticed that I've removed the "romance" tag from this story. This isn't because I'm calling off the expected pairings, but because I've decided that the romantic aspect isn't really the main point of the piece. (However, another pairing has woven its way into the background here, ha.)

I'd also like to add that this fic has created a few branch-off stories, all of which are listed on my journal, in case you're curious.

Enjoy!

* * *

Amelia knew fear as well as any soldier might. She was no stranger to the pounding of a heart against ribs, the rush of fire into limbs, the urge to scream and the discipline it took to resist. She felt it in the clenching of her thighs around her mount, Shanley's, back and in the tightening of her neck and arms as she leaned ahead, but she tried to ignore the thoughts that always accompanied it. On its own, the fear of a battle was easy enough to deal with. Everything else tended to complicate things.

She clambered off the horse and stumbled into the abandoned house they'd been afforded, shouting Natasha's name and trying to stifle the rising panic in her voice. She always marveled at how calm Duessel remained, even as he charged into hordes of enemies and watched his friends do the same. And Cormag, with the way he channeled his rage only into his lance, letting his expression betray no weakness or terror – Amelia couldn't say she wasn't envious. Even Natasha possessed a quiet strength Amelia couldn't quite fathom, a quiet strength that was nowhere as she yelped and jumped out of bed at the sound of her name.

"What is it? An attack?" Already, she was fumbling for her staffs and books. "How far have they come? Is anyone injured?" There was no terror in her eyes at the thought of going out to fight, or of the possibility rushing out only to be met with the staring faces of friends' corpses.

"I-I don't know," Amelia choked, after a moment of awkward silence with Natasha's gaze fixed on her. "Kn-Knoll was out there, and General Duessel and Cormag are on the way." Was that accusation in Natasha's look, now? _How could you not know?_ Before Amelia could discern any more, the cleric was throwing on her cloak and boots and pushing her way out the door.

She followed, though her hands trembled and her legs threatened to give out before she even remounted. Every time, it was like this. Perhaps she'd never get used to the pounding in her ears or the flutter of her breaths in her chest or the visions of blood soaking blonde hair and the sound of his voice gasping _"I just wanted to protect you"_ and –

She clenched her fists around the worn leather reigns and spurred Shanley on, focusing instead on how Duessel had poked fun at her for taking so much time to consider a good name for a mutt of a gelding like this, how Cormag had prodded him and reminded him that a bond with a mount was very important, how Knoll had gone off on a tangent about the differences in temperaments between horses and wyverns while Natasha chuckled and sneaked them all bits of carrot from her stew, regardless of how well-considered their names were.

Amelia overtook Natasha to lead the way to the spot in the outskirts of town where she'd left the battle. How had so many more beasts come since then? She wouldn't have left anyone alone with so many enemies, especially not a scrawny mage who could barely lift his own books. Perhaps she'd made a mistake. She couldn't see him anywhere, either. What if it had been too much? They had never been close. If anything, Knoll was chilly to her, and had been since she'd asked him how it was the emperor had died and lived again, and why Franz couldn't do the same. Regardless of the glares he usually favored her with now, she didn't want Knoll's death on her hands any more than anyone else's.

She spotted Genarog tearing into the horde ahead, all teeth and wings and talons, and then saw his rider kneeling off to the side. No, was he hurt too? Was she too late, again? She wouldn't let this happen. There was no way she'd let him die. She couldn't run over to heal him like Natasha might, or wear heavy armor that could protect her body while she took blows for her friends like Duessel, or even wield magic to slay opposition from afar like Knoll. It was moments like this, seeing Cormag on his knees and knowing nothing, being helpless, that she wondered why she'd even come along to help.

No. Grado was as much hers as it was theirs. She could not do what they could do, but she was hardly helpless. She grabbed her sword and charged, all thoughts of death pushed behind her, if only for a moment.

_I can protect myself now, and everyone else, too._

If only she had learned how to sooner.

* * *

Natasha knew well the passion that drove Amelia ahead and found herself forcing it back to remain focused on the task at hand. The first matter, of course, would be to assure no one was injured, and then she could turn her attentions to the ongoing fight. She quickly surveyed the scene ahead and tried to catch sight of each of her allies – Amelia, riding ahead with a shout of fury and a brandished blade; Duessel, swinging his ax with a sort of grace she never would have connected with him before; Cormag, kneeling to the sidelines – was he calling for her?

Her boots sank into the thick mud as she slid to the ground and took off into a run, ignoring the arrows that barely missed her tangled hair and slim shoulders. They could be taken care of in time; for now, there were more urgent things to be seen to.

Natasha's breath hitched as she took in the dark stains streaked down Cormag's half-torn shirt and spilling across his arms and calloused hands. "Where are you injured?" she asked, reaching out to begin work. He shook his head and gestured to the shaman slumped against a tree behind him, pale hand barely clutching at the shoulder bound by the scraps of Cormag's shirt. Natasha wondered if it was sinful of her to be a bit less fearful, then.

She approached her patient, whose eyes cracked open at the sound of her footsteps and opened his paling lips to speak. He could only manage a croak of "Leave me, I'm fine," before gasping and leaning back against the withered old tree.

"Stop that," Natasha murmured. "Dying here won't help anyone. You know that." He was always the one to point out such things – _"Who will profit if you die here, Natasha? Who will that save?" – _but she'd grown used to his curious brand of hypocrisy. She pulled his hand away from the wound and gently undid the bindings to assess the damage and set to work. Staff touched broken skin and she quietly murmured the chants she knew so well, though they were quickly drowned out by her charge's yelps of pain. Before she could pause to offer soothing words, his hand shot out and grasped at hers. Though Knoll's fingers were sticky with blood and his grip felt hard tight enough to snap her slim fingers, she did not pull away. His eyes were clenched shut and he surely couldn't see it, but still Natasha tried to smile, more for her own sakethan his.

She heard a shout of victory from behind her and turned away for just a moment. Perhaps more time had passed than she had realized; the once terrifying wave of monsters had been reduced to a few stragglers, railing pathetically against the efforts of her friends. Her gaze gravitated toward any injuries she could catch sight of. Blood ran freely from a gash in Amelia's cheek, and Cormag had earned a slice to his lance arm since rejoining the fight, but nothing needed her attention right away.

"Go help them," she heard, and she turned around to see Knoll's eyes open, his gaze fixed on hers. "I can wait."

She thought to protest, but knew it would do little good. She'd done enough that she could leave him for a moment, and if she didn't, he'd sigh and mope and insist until she did. His grip slacked and she pulled away, though she could not say why she did it with such reluctance.

* * *

It was nearly daybreak when the haggard group arrived back at the house in the middle of the village. The smell of wood stoves burning for early morning meals was already beginning to creep into the air, and the creak of crickets in the darkness had nearly disappeared. Amelia's heart still hadn't calmed itself, and her hands still trembled. Had that spear hit her a bit lower, she could be lying among the half-rotten corpses out there, no better than the monsters only Knoll seemed to remember the names of. She reminded herself that it hadn't hit lower, that she was alive, that everyone else was, too. She hadn't failed. She had protected them all.

She watched Duessel strip of his heavy armor, a measure she couldn't quite understand in these times, and sink into the flimsy cot with the slightest of sighs.

"You did well tonight, lass," he said, offering her a half smile that, on another man, would have seemed like a grimace. "How is your face?"

She answered his smile with one of her own. "Fine, sir! Sister Natasha said it shouldn't scar, so long as it's kept clean." There was a time when this would have been a disappointment, when she would have longed for battle scars like the long, pale streak across Gerik's face, or the shock of white she'd seen spill across the Renaitian prince's torso through a guilty peek in a tent flap. Now, she would like nothing better than to never see a scar like that again.

"Good, very good." His attention turned to the others, Natasha stumbling in looking a bit too pale, Cormag slowly following with Knoll leaning heavily on his shoulder. "Everyone all right?"

Natasha nodded, and Cormag cast a hesitant glance in her direction before nodding himself. Knoll only paused to take a shuddering breath before saying, "We're low on supplies. We can't continue like this."

"Renais can't afford to support us," Duessel sighed. Amelia felt her fists tighten at the name, remembering the chatter she'd heard in towns before. The common people still referred to its people as "dogs", to its king as a power-hungry fool, to his appointed officials as pawns. She hadn't managed to restrain her temper as she knew Duessel would have. Never before had she shouted like that, never had she so vehemently defended a place and people she barely knew. Those ignorant people could speak of heroes' descendants and national shame without a care in the world. They would never know what Renais had given for their sake. What _he _had given.

"We could petition Frelia," Cormag cut in, as he eased the shaman down into a cot. "United with Rausten, surely they can afford a bit of aid for us."

Natasha sighed. "Rausten's already sent as many clergymen as they can spare. I doubt they'd offer much in the way of money, but perhaps addressing King Innes directly would help. We don't have the backing of royalty any longer, but. . . ."

The talk of politics always unsettled Amelia, so used to talk of the problems at hand, the issues of the villages and cities they passed and the challenges ahead. She couldn't keep track of the names of nobles the others would toss around, or relate to the nostalgic tales of life in Grado's courts and its lost royalty. She'd never met the emperor in person, only heard the chatter from the others regarding his situation, and had only seen his son once, perhaps twice. All she knew was that the air of sadness in the room when it inevitably came up was enough to choke her, and that it nearly always ended in Knoll excusing himself and Cormag clenching his fists and muttering curses. Perhaps it was better to be ignorant. She had enough grief as it was.

"Ah, but the rivalry between King Innes and Eph– _King_ Ephraim is the stuff of legends." Duessel's smile spread across his face, and he leaned forward just a bit, the way he did when he had an especially clever yarn to share with the others. "I doubt, if he learned that Renais had _failed_ to aid us, that he would pass up the chance to succeed."

"Anything is worth a try," Knoll sighed with a nod. "For now, we need to get to work again, do we not?"

Amelia glanced out the window. It was daybreak already. The surge of energy that had carried her through the night was wearing off, and her eyes begged for sleep.

"No." Natasha's voice was surprisingly firm, much more forceful than Amelia had ever heard her. "_We_ need to get to work again. _You_ are staying here."

More surprising than the strength in Natasha's quiet voice was the silent, reluctant nod Knoll gave in return.


	5. Perfection

**Through These Nights**

Chapter 5: Perfection

**Author's note:** Many, many thanks again to everyone reading and reviewing here! Uh, long chapter is, well, long, but I hope it works out all right. (Cormag is very hard to write for some reason. Hopefully I don't fail Cormag 101.)

Special thanks to Xirysa for being my awesome pseudo-beta/idea-smacker buddy.

* * *

_You have beautiful handwriting._

Knoll couldn't quite recall who had told him that. It might have been one of the numerous mages he had studied under in his youth, or one of the officials at the meetings he occasionally scribed. It might have been his mother. Whoever it had been, they would laugh if they saw it now – lines meant to be swooping and elegant now marred by the tremble of his non-dominant hand, clumsy circles tainted by splatters of errant ink. An ugly reminder of failure, uglier than the patched-up gash across his left shoulder or the black-brown stains on his old set of clothes.

The pain, he could handle. Natasha would ask if it hurt every time she came by to drop off supplies and pick up new ones, and every time he would lie. A sin, he was sure of it, but he had no desire to see her curl her lip just so at his weakness, the same way she did when she found him peering at his books by candlelight in the middle of the night. The pain didn't anger him like black specks on cream, or disgust masked by a smile.

_Paper is expensive,_ he reminded himself as he fought the urge to crumple the sheet and start anew. Thick, rough, uneven at the edges, it was nothing like the fragile sheets that filled his tomes, but it held up well to the slow, deliberate scraping of his quill. It would be suited to the whims of a painter, perhaps, if stretched wet on a board, as Knoll recalled one of Renais' knights doing when the weather was damp and the water was clean. It sucked the ink greedily from each tremulous stroke, a welcome distraction from the stabbing ache in his arm and the rising chill in the air. Winter would bring many problems, both for the struggling villages and the band of travelers. It was better not to think about such things.

He sat back and looked down at his work, trying to force his eyes to see the words and not the ugly wobbles in his lines. The tone was formal enough. Imploring, but not quite groveling – perfect for a letter that may as well have been begging Frelia for aid. Even in ruins, Grado would bow to no ruler but its own. The space for the signature remained empty. He would have Duessel sign it later. Despite refusing the post of regent Renais had offered him and resigning from his position as Grado's last great general, Duessel's name continued to hold clout, even if his signature was even worse than Knoll's broken handwriting. Better the sloppy hand of a hero than even the neatest of an accomplice to ruin, a failure in all the worst ways.

Knoll forced himself to push away from the rickety desk instead of continuing to stare at the blotches staining his page. Now that he'd written the letter, there was nothing left to be done, save following the instructions to rest, to "allow his body to heal", as Natasha had put it. He considered obeying for a moment. It would be nice to curl up beneath the quilt a villager in the northern countryside had given him – or rather, given Natasha with the instructions to pass it on to her "quiet friend" as he'd overheard – and read one of the few books he kept for pleasure rather than functionality.

The contemplation did not last long. He had not undertaken this journey to stay in bed and wish he were more useful. He had duties to fulfill, visions to bring to fruition. He would not fail.

Knoll stood and began to collect his supplies, finding they felt much heavier when he only had his weaker right arm to work with. He suppressed a gasp as he twisted the wrong way and sent pain shooting through his barely repaired shoulder, but couldn't hold back the string of curses that followed it, words that would have surely made his prince blush.

He hadn't time to even push that image from his mind when a voice cut in, cool and stern. "What are you doing?"

Cormag cut across the room and took the heavy tome that trembled in Knoll's hand, then tucked it neatly into the rucksack on the floor without so much as a pointed look to say _you shouldn't be doing this_. As little as they spoke, and as much as Genarog terrified him, Knoll had always appreciated that about Cormag.

"I could ask the same of you. Weren't you training with Duessel?"

Cormag came inside with a shake of his head. "I've other things to work on today, and the old man could use a day on his own. Genarog can help in my stead. Now, really, shouldn't you be resting?"

"I cannot just stay here while everyone else works," Knoll answered icily. "I'm not in much pain, and I can still work magic without much trouble – "

"Not in much pain? I've never heard you curse like that. Duessel teach you those words? I can't imagine you learned them from those books of yours."

"Perhaps I did," Knoll challenged with the slightest smirk, though neither of Cormag's hypotheses were correct. They were the words of castle servants above the crash of fragile dishes, the whispers of nobles from the countryside when the emperor spoke of higher taxes, the rabid shouts of mad generals as their exiles were announced before the court. Knoll had never heard Duessel curse.

Cormag snorted. "Right. Are you certain you're up to coming out?" He gave a nod in the direction of Knoll's bound shoulder. "Natasha says she couldn't close it all the way in one go, isn't that right?"

"I plan on being cautious." Again, Knoll bent to finish collecting his supplies, but this time Cormag caught him by his uninjured shoulder.

"What, exactly, do you intend on doing _carefully_? Natasha told me you both tended to the worst of the injured and ill yesterday, and you're in no condition to train with Duessel, not with that wound."

"I thought I could go help Amelia keep watch at the edge of town. I can still work magic with one arm; it isn't that difficult."

Cormag sighed and shook his head. "I doubt that's the best of plans, but I can see you won't be deterred."

"Correct," Knoll answered, fingers clenching around the book in his hand. "I haven't come all this way to just sit inside and burden everyone else." It was bad enough Natasha had used supplies intended for the unfortunate on his wounds, that the possibility of some poor child going without thanks to his own clumsiness was far too real.

"I won't try to stop you, but I think Amelia can handle herself. Why not come help me with repairs around the village instead?" Knoll shoved the book into the sack and glanced up, eyebrow arched. "You look as if you could use some sunshine. Someone might mistake you for a revenant, the way you look now."

It took a moment for Knoll to catch on that he was being teased, even with the slight smirk on Cormag's face, and a moment longer to decide that he wasn't upset by it. There were worse things – worse _people_ – to be compared to, after all. Long, ragged pale hair, soft voice and slender build, an affinity for the ancient arts – whenever such things were mentioned, Knoll considered setting his books alight.

"Repairs? Do you mean. . . carpentry, and the like?" The village hadn't appeared to be in much need of it, at least not compared to the piles of rubble and ruin they'd passed through before. The fiends creeping from the marshes beyond were far more concerning than holes in roofs and toppled fences, and neither was quite as large a threat as the foul smell that crept into once-clean rivers and strangled fields from within.

Cormag nodded. "There isn't too much to be done here, but for a beginner like you, that might be for the best. I could still use a hand – even if you can only use one."

Knoll understood the tease there immediately, but did not appreciate it that time. He needed no reminder of his numerous failures, his arm just the latest in a long string of them. It was still better than the thought of contending with Amelia and her endless stares, her uncomfortable questions, her need to ask him every once in a while about the dead, the darkness, the future, all the things he preferred to leave lurking in the back corners of his mind.

"I shall try," he answered at last, but he still lifted his bag of books onto his good shoulder, just in case. "But I make no promises regarding the quality of my workmanship. My right hand is. . . unsteady, and I am unskilled."

Cormag's smirk twitched up into a friendlier smile as he shook his head. "I'm sure I can fix any mistakes you make. You're a mage, not a carpenter. I don't expect perfection."

_I do,_ Knoll thought, but he remained silent, only giving a nod in return. Perfection at that moment could not erase the flaws that had come before. Like black ink splattered on pristine cream, they were permanent, unerasable.

* * *

"We'll start right here," Cormag said, gesturing to the house before them. "It isn't too bad, but the roof could use repairs before winter comes. . . ."

Knoll knew Cormag was still talking, and he understood snippets about fences and doors and other details, but he was distracted by the familiar scent of vegetable soup and chamomile, the sight of a tiny yellowed garden at the window, the slight sound of moaning and sobs he swore he heard carried by the wind.

"You understand?" he heard Cormag ask, and by the slightly sharper tone, Knoll knew it wasn't the first time he'd been asked.

"Ah, yes. I understand."

"Perfect." Cormag clapped his good shoulder before going to the door and knocking. Knoll's stomach wrenched as it creaked open and the father he'd spoken with the previous day, somehow more haggard than he had been before, came outside. His gaze seemed to drift in Knoll's direction even as Cormag explained the repairs they'd be doing, and somehow Knoll managed to meet it with the coldest expression he could manage. Natasha, of course, was the image of hope, the wholesome healer sent to soothe the pain of the unfortunate. It was better for someone else, someone already tainted, to be the bearer of bad news.

Cormag finished speaking with the father and gestured for Knoll to come closer, thankfully only after the door had closed. "I'm going to start with the fence," he said, "and later, I'll bring Genarog over and we'll start on the roof." Knoll barely registered the thought of the wyvern, whose teeth and wings and horrible claws usually made him want to cower or scream. "You at least know the names of tools, don't you?"

"I've read about them," Knoll answered, perhaps a bit too curtly, and Cormag pressed his lips into a frown before dropping the bag of tools he'd picked up at the house by the collapsed fence. A high enough fence, Knoll recalled, would keep the slower, duller revenants at bay, a delay that could easily save a life in times like these. Had they time to stay longer and the funds to spare, he might have proposed the erection of one around the town itself. As it was, they had only the means to repair what was already there with the paltry supply the blacksmiths at the capitol had been able to spare.

Cormag grabbed for a hammer and explained nothing as he lifted a fallen post and began ramming it back into the soft earth. The steady rhythm of hammer on wood, the same as the quick succession of _gasp, shudder, wheeze_ he swore he could hear through the open window, drove into his mind.

"So," Cormag said, glancing up from his work for a moment to look straight at Knoll. Knoll avoided his eyes and stared instead at the thick callouses on his large, tanned hands, the fine lines of scars dancing up his bare arms. "You and Natasha, are you. . . you know?"

"I don't know what you mean," Knoll replied, before grabbing another fencepost and trying to imitate Cormag's actions. His own rhythm was shaky, uneven, and each blow made little impact on the stubborn wood.

"I assumed. . . well, you work together all the time, don't you? I assumed you had to like her, the way you look at her."

_Do I look at her?_ Knoll wondered, and tried to remember. He supposed he could recall easily the slope of her shoulders, the glint of her hair, the slight smile that seemed to dangle between mercy and mockery. One would have to look at her, at least from time to time, to recall such things. But then, there were things he hadn't seen in years that he could call up at a moment's notice, as if he'd seen them moments before. Perhaps Natasha was like that.

"I don't. . . dislike her," he ventured, as he tried to match the timing of his strokes to the steady gasps that continued in his mind. Cormag reached over and steadied the plank, a welcome addition to the shaky support his own free hand could offer. "But we work together because our disciplines complement each other. No other reason."

"Is that so?" He heard the faintest trace of laughter in Cormag's words. Friendly or derisive, he couldn't decide. "Well. Should you decide that it is more than 'don't dislike', I'm always here for advice."

"Don't we have more important matters to attend to than that?" Knoll finally gave up on the plank and stepped away, letting it jut to the side next to its neighbor. His breath came in short, wheezing gasps in the same rapid _one two three_ rhythm as the ones in his mind. Cormag made no move to reach for the hammer and continue the work. Instead, his hand moved to Knoll's head and mussed his sweat-drenched hair, the same way he would do to Amelia at the end of a trying day.

"There's not enough time in this life to think like that. If you want something, take it today. It might not be there tomorrow."

There were so many things Knoll wanted, so many dreams he had left to fulfill, but he knew better than to think such things mattered in reality. He looked back to Cormag and caught the slightest hint of a frown playing on his lips.

"Why did you just do that?" he asked, trying in vain to fix his hair. "I'm not a child. Don't treat me like one."

"You're still young. Don't be so touchy." Cormag offered his hand in apology, but Knoll only stared at it, doubtful. Eventually, Cormag lowered his hand.

They fell into silence and stillness, alone with the gentle moan of the wind through the marshlands, the distant squawks of wild crows and magpies, the lingering whispers of labored breaths that floated between imaginings and reality, the same scraping sound that accompanied nearly every death Knoll could remember.

"It sounds a bit stupid, doesn't it, what I said?" Cormag said at last, his deep voice breaking the reverie. "You must think so. I suppose it's a bit trite, but. . . it's what my brother would have said to me." He reached out and took the hammer again, and as the pounding commenced, once more with that dreadful timing, Knoll tried not to think about grief.


	6. Fear

**Through These Nights**

Chapter Six: Fear

**Author's note:** This fic was on a very brief hiatus due to the disasters in Japan. After putting some thought into it, I decided there would never really be a _right_ time to put this out, so I've merely shifted the focus a bit, as was originally planned. All my thoughts and prayers go out to those suffering due to the disaster and its aftereffects.

* * *

". . .a_nd though the body might perish and fall to rot, let it not be said that the end of this life is the end of all things. For the gods did so love Saint Latona that they showed her a ladder of light on her last night in this world, and bid her climb and join them eternally in their hallowed halls. Thus, surely, shall all their worthy children follow at the end of their days, and ever after face neither pain, nor fear, nor suffering._"

It was a verse Natasha knew all too well, the same one she had recited from memory at every city, village, and backwater waypost on their journey. She had repeated it over solitary unmarked graves, over hastily half-covered pits, over long-abandoned markers for the dead. The sun filtered through the branches Cormag had fashioned into a funeral pyre as she finished the verse, sending patches of light dancing across her eyes and leaving spots in her vision. She prayed, futile though it was, that this might be the last time she spoke the verse for some time.

_Neither pain, nor fear, nor suffering._ As she stepped back and recalled the sweat-stained face of the boy she'd tended to, whose shriveled body would rest in the embrace of dry wood and leaves in a few moments' time, she recalled those words again and again.

"It is a mercy," she heard, as the rites continued without her. She looked up and found Knoll at her side, his fingers subtly pressing at his wounded shoulder. He did not meet her gaze, staring instead at the harsh streaks of red and violet sunrise beyond her as he spoke. "Forgive me if sound callous, Sister, but these are not times for any child."

"That's true," she murmured hesitantly. She tried to catch his gaze, but he seemed to purposefully avoid looking at her at all. "He is, of course, in a better place now."

"Of course he is," Knoll replied quietly, and for a moment he met her gaze out of the corner of his narrowed eyes. "'_The worthy shall be lifted into the arms of the gods, while the sinful shall be cast into the fires of hell,' _isn't that how the verse goes?"

It was Natasha who flinched away from meeting his eyes as she gave a slight nod.

"I see," Knoll said. "That is. . . ." He turned away again, and Natasha glanced up to see him narrowing his eyes at the rising sun. She could never quite discern what he was thinking. He seemed to fluctuate between slight pensiveness and outright melancholy, neither of which were particularly endearing.

"That is what?" she asked, hardening her quivering voice.

"That is. . . exactly how I thought it went." Knoll's lips quirked slightly as he spoke. Natasha couldn't decide if it was the beginnings of a deeper-than-usual frown, or the faint, cynical smile he sometimes met her with. Perhaps it was just a flinch at the pain in his shoulder. "Excuse me, Sister." Before she could object, he had set off back in the direction of the village, paying no mind to the lighting of the funeral fires.

_Selfish,_ Natasha thought, as the rich smell of burning wood crept into the air. The man acted as if he were the only one to ever taste grief, as if he were the only one who'd lost something dear in the chaos that had swallowed Magvel. He hadn't known for himself the collapse of the palace order, the slow disappearance of dissenters, the quiet talk of executions and exiles leading up to heads displayed on fences to prove the might of the emperor's will. He might have suffered in that dank little cell they'd found him in, but it was hardly the horror she knew herself.

"Natasha?" She looked up at the sound of her name to see Cormag at her side. "Is something wrong?"

She answered with only a silent shake of her head, and reminded herself that pettiness was not fit for a woman in her position. _Anger serves no one,_ she recalled her mentor saying once, his hands steadying her own quaking fingers. She had forgotten the offense that had nearly sent her flying into sinful rage, and she doubted she would ever remember it, but she would always remember his warm smile and quiet reminders, almost as clearly as she would remember hearing later how his legs twitched when he was hanged.

She felt Cormag's hand tighten on her shoulder, though when he'd put it there at all was beyond her. "You don't need to lie to me." She caught remnants of his south Grado accent slipping into his words, in the way he curled his lips around "don't" and nearly skipped over "to". The way he spoke was almost entrancing, so different from Knoll's quiet, measured diction and Duessel's rowdy banter. She couldn't help but notice how easily he said her name.

"It's really nothing," she replied, though she suspected Cormag might understand better than anyone. She pulled away from his comforting grip and glanced back toward the village. "We should head back. There's more work to be done."

"Isn't there always?" he said in return, his voice flat, and Natasha almost smiled.

* * *

"The fever should pass within a few days. Keep cold cloths on her face, and make certain she drinks enough water. This is dried willow bark; brew it in a tea for her once or twice a day if she's able to keep it down, but do not force it on her if she cannot."

As he spoke, Knoll was sure he sounded too cold and impersonal, but he couldn't quite capture the warmth and kindness he still desperately wanted to emulate. It had been easier working with Natasha; he could tend to the basic matters of curing whatever it was that ailed his patients without having to worry about keeping his voice gentle or reassuring families that things would be all right. As it was, Natasha wouldn't approve of him working at all in his condition, and so he worked alone, hoping she wouldn't go back to the house and notice he was gone.

Despite his utter failure at emulating a bedside manner, the woman Knoll was speaking to smiled up at him as she stroked her daughter's heated face. She had kind eyes, Knoll thought, though they were lined with red from lack of sleep and worry. "Thank you," she murmured, taking the packet of dried bark he offered her. Unlike so many others, she didn't recoil from his touch as their hands brushed together. She actually took his hand in her own and gave it a small, almost motherly squeeze.

Accustomed to the vague hostility most villagers seemed to meet him with, Knoll found himself struggling to respond. He managed to smile back, though he was sure it was obviously false. After a moment, he remembered the proper response to the mother's sentiments. "Y-you're welcome," he stammered through his own uncertainty, before pulling his hand away and reaching for his satchel of supplies.

"Be careful," the woman called as he turned away. It was a strange warning, one he didn't think he'd heard from anyone before on their travels. He stopped at the door and looked over his shoulder.

"What do you mean?"

The woman laid a kiss on her daughter's forehead before leaving the bedside and going to the door. Perhaps she had noticed that Knoll hadn't moved his left arm at all, for it was the right shoulder she grabbed and not the wounded one. He resisted the immediate urge to squirm away from the unfamiliar touch and stood his ground.

"My husband left the village only last week," she said, keeping her voice low enough that there was no way the child in the other room could possibly hear her.

"But why is that a concern?" Knoll felt his stomach lurch, though he couldn't say just why. It was almost like the sense of foreboding he'd felt only once before, deep in the Keep as he watched the life leave his emperor's eyes.

The woman chewed her lip and gave a small shake of her head. "He wasn't the only one. There's been talk, for a while now, of war."

"War?" Knoll nearly dropped the collection of supplies he had bundled under his arm. "Th-that's not possible. Why would anyone possibly. . . ." Had the country learned nothing? It had been barely three years since the near-cataclysmic conclusion of the previous fight, and only six months since the country had been wracked by the disaster its prince had tried so desperately to prevent.

"I can't say, only that they were heading to the capital." Knoll was barely aware of swaying slightly and leaning up against the doorway to keep his balance. He wasn't sure whether he was going to laugh, cry, or simply be sick. "Are you all right?" He felt the woman grab at him again, this time touching his face and hair in ways that made him long for more and cringe at the same time. "You look ill. Here, sit down."

He pulled out of her grip and gave a wild shake of his head. _This can't be happening. It can't be. Not again._ "No. I'm fine." He caught her staring at him and wondered what it was she was looking at so intently. Whatever it was, he hated it. "I have other business to attend to. My apologies." Before he could be delayed again, he slipped out the door and rushed straight for the training fields at the outskirts of the village. Surely, if such a thing was happening, Duessel would know.

* * *

The familiar weight of the lance in Duessel's hand was a small comfort as he demonstrated, again, how to thrust and twist in a way that was sure to demolish any revenant or bandit that stood in a villager's path. The townspeople seemed to be catching on quickly, between his own lessons and Cormag's. It was a welcome relief. They would have to move on soon, and if the people could not protect themselves on their own, all their efforts to heal, to rebuild, would be for naught.

He lifted his spear and called out the instructions – "Put all your might into it; don't be timid!" – as the rabble assembled mimicked him with their weapons. Only a few had spears or blades; the rest mimed the motions with pitchforks or farm scythes. A few even attempted it with mops or brooms or crudely pointed branches. It was a far cry from the way he once trained knights and princes, but somehow, it was just as fulfilling.

Duessel lifted his gaze as he noticed a familiar figure, clad in an oversized jerkin and too-tight hose, trampling down the hill at the edge of the village with a speed he had never seen before. There was something frantic in the way he moved, an uncharacteristic panic that immediately set Duessel on edge. He set his lance down and called for his students to keep practicing, before pulling away from the crowd to meet Knoll at the edge of the fields. The younger man was flushed and breathless, and his eyes were wild with the sort of dread Duessel had not seen from him in years.

"Calm down, lad." There wasn't even the quirk of annoyance at the edge of Knoll's lips, as there might usually be. _Don't speak to me as you would a child_, he'd grumble on most days, in his roundabout, too-formal way. It was the only thing he ever objected to. "What's the matter?" He watched as Knoll attempted to catch his breath, and finally reached out to steady him.

"I heard. . . from the village. . . people. . . talking about going back to war," Knoll answered between ragged gasps. "It's not true. . . is it?"

Duessel set his jaw, trying to find the words. It would have been nice to answer _no_, but the rumors were rife in every tavern and inn they'd visited. He'd heard nothing of actual actions, but the sense of unrest was undeniable.

"I can't say," he answered at last, grimacing as Knoll jerked away from his touch.

"How could anyone want that again?" the younger man asked, and Duessel couldn't say if it was despair or quiet rage slipping into the edges of his shaking voice.

"Dissatisfaction. Confusion. Fear. Grief. A million things drive people to jump to fighting. You know that by now." Knoll flinched at "grief", but Duessel made no motion to try to touch him again. "Of course, there's been unrest since the regent was named – no Grado blood, and all of that, but. . . ."

"Do the people expect a 'legitimate' heir to just fall from the sky?" There was no question that it was rage at that point, the same subtle, aimless anger that slipped into his voice on the rare occasions the late prince was brought up. "After everything, how could anyone –"

"I know." Knoll fell silent at Duessel's words and let his balled fists loose. "It isn't right. We'll do what we can here, and then. . . perhaps we should visit the capital, eh? I'm sure they'll have heard, but if we can help somehow, it's worth something."

Knoll glanced back at the village behind him, biting his lip and fiddling with the edges of his sleeve. "Perhaps it is," he said finally. "I believe. . . I believe it is what the prince would want."

"He wouldn't want another war, would he?"

"He would not. I am sure of it."

Duessel only faintly recalled his emperor's son as he had once been – small, quiet, often ill, with a hesitant smile, one Knoll seemed to eerily mimic on the few occasions that he laughed. More vividly, he recalled the thing that wore the same skin, grinning freely at the haggard group huddled in the darkness and mocking their efforts. It was near impossible to separate them now, at least in his own mind, a fact that made him wish he'd paid more attention through those years. He wondered, as he watched his companion stare off into the distance, if even Knoll could tell the difference anymore.


	7. Happiness

**Through These Nights**

Chapter Seven: Happiness

**Author's note:** A slightly more upbeat chapter, in preparation for the upheaval I'll be pouring onto you all in the next ones! Aren't you excited?

Anyway, aside from that – there's some magic and language and zombie meta going on here. Amelia's attempt at approximating the lines from Knoll's text are actually derived from phonetic readings of a translation of the imagined sentence into Old English, which, as with the text and Magvel's current tongue, has some superficial similarities with our modern English, but is truly a very different beast. And. . . yes, I am a language geek.

Continued thanks and love to everyone who's following this. Things will be getting underway _very soon_.

* * *

Amelia's chest shuddered with each heaving breath that came as she drove her sword into the putrid torso of yet another revenant. A strangled gurgle burst from the ruins of its throat as the blade tore into the gaping cavern that had once been its gut and rended the creature nearly in two. It almost sounded human.

There was something even more human in the way its eyes, dead once again as they should have remained, stared up at Amelia, and in the way its jaw, clothed by strips of half-rotten flesh, hung open, as if in mid-scream. There was another lumbering toward her already, but for just a moment, Amelia allowed herself to stare, and to notice that in the deep, reeking holes of its face, its eyes shone a shade of green that was all too familiar.

Were it not for that, she might have wondered why it was its eyes were even still intact when the other soft organs were clearly in tatters, if perhaps the thing could actually _see_, instead of just dragging its body toward its targets through some hideous, unnatural _sense_. As it was, she could do nothing but stare at them, her sword slack in her hand and her mind ablaze with images she didn't want to remember. Blood on her hands, on her face, on her clothes as she held him close to her body and shouted his name.

Amelia didn't want to remember that. She focused instead on the cold, creeping sensation of another revenant's hideous hand fixing on her forearm, and on the satisfying squelch of her blade slicing its arm clean off before running it through. Worse than the sight of them, the peeling, wrinkled skin and soft, wretched flesh, was the smell – sickly-sweet and unescapable, like meat left out too long in the sun. Amelia was sure it would cling to her clothes and hair as it always did, just as the smell of blood from the battlefield never quite left her.

The almost-human _things_ were not the only ones creeping out from the edges of the woods. There were a few – thankfully _only_ a few – of the larger, monstrous things that would almost seem like ordinary animals were it not for the huge fangs and weapons they bore. She still remembered the sight of the wound in Knoll's shoulder as she dodged the axe of one of the larger beasts, which towered over her even on her mare's back. It had a name, she was sure of that, but she could never quite keep track of them all. All she knew was that there was no one in sight to back her up, and if its blade cut into her the way it had Knoll, she wouldn't make it out alive.

_I don't want to die._

There had been a time when she hadn't been so sure of that, but she had recovered quickly. Too much had been lost for the sake of her life. It wasn't for her to just throw that away. She raised her sword with a shout to counter the blow of the axe-wielding creature, her arms nearly buckling beneath the force. She had too much to fight for, too much to _live_ for, to die alone in the woods. She would make sure that no one would ever have to grieve for her sake.

At last the creature withdrew its blade. It heaved the axe upward again in a slow, measured arc, an unexpected act of precision in a thing that was otherwise so wild. Amelia did not wait. She drove her sword into the belly of her foe without a shred of hesitation, only tearing it free when she heard the axe fall to the soft earth below.

As the monster toppled to the ground with its weapon, the few remaining revenants seemed to take it as a cue to retreat. They shambled back into the trees, and Amelia, exhausted and aching, made no move to follow. It would be useless, she figured. There was no way she could take them all on alone.

Her gaze strayed again to one of the monster corpses sprawled out in the mud, its eyes still open and staring her down. It really did resemble a person – the same hands and feet, bones she recognized from too many battles. She could almost imagine lips at the meeting of its skull and exposed jaw, covering the teeth held in by ragged bits of gums. The face she found herself imagining made her stomach lurch and her knees feel weak.

_Suppose this was a person, once? Suppose any person could end up like this? Suppose. . ._

She couldn't stand the thought. She dug her heel into Shanley's side and urged her on, out of the woods and back into the village, at the fastest speed the mount could handle.

* * *

Amelia had hoped to find Duessel in the little cottage. Surely, he'd have some word of comfort. He always seemed to know just what to say, the way no one else ever did. Of course he'd tell her what she'd imagined wasn't possible, and she could stop thinking about it for a while. Even if his words were perfect, it was often hard to believe them. He'd said, as well, that losing Franz was not her fault, that she couldn't have saved him, that _no one_ could have – but he seemed to forget why it was Franz had been where he had, why it was that her own countrymen had been so able to cut him down.

She found, instead, only a slim figure hunched over a book and a single candle. It took her a moment to recognize him without his dark, heavy robes, though it had been nearly two weeks since he'd cast them off and tucked them in with the old books he insisted on carrying.

_Maybe Knoll would know, _she thought, but she stayed quiet and made no move to come closer. He'd probably snap at her if she asked, and she couldn't truly blame him. Had she perhaps moved a bit faster, shouted a bit more loudly, his arm might still be intact, instead of hanging useless by his side. Were it not for Natasha's own speed and expertise, he might have bled to death out there, or worse.

Amelia's imagination seemed to only be vivid when imagining the worst situations. It could conjure up corpses at a moment's notice and easily recall the sound of blade piercing flesh, of strangled gurgles, of her own name choked out –

She forced herself to focus on what was in front of her, shutting the images out of her mind. She hadn't noticed before how long his pale hair had gotten, long enough that even when messily tied back, it brushed against his shoulder blades as he moved to turn the page. It was an interesting distraction, enough to keep the hideous images at bay for a moment.

"I heard you come in, you know."

Amelia had never quite understood what people meant when they spoke of _jumping out of their skin_ until that moment. Delicate and, dare she say it, _pretty_ as he was, there was something about Knoll's voice that never failed to unnerve her, and it was made even worse by the eerieness of the candlelight on his drawn face and the sudden jolt of his words.

"I'm sorry," she blurted, finally coming a bit closer. Knoll looked up from the tome he'd been studying, which she liked to imagine was in some mysterious arcane tongue. She ignored the text she saw etched in its spine as Knoll closed it and pushed it away: _A Concise History of Magvel, Volume 3_. It didn't seem particularly arcane or mysterious, or really, interesting at all. "I didn't mean to intrude –"

"Next time, just saying 'hello' will do." She couldn't tell if the edge in his voice was annoyance or fatigue. From the way he slowly closed his eyes, almost as if he was nodding off, she preferred to think it was the latter option. "I take it Duessel went back out to the woods?"

Amelia swallowed hard. "I was hoping to, uhm, to, ah, to find General Duessel here, so I could, ah, tell him that I –"

"Did something happen?" Finally, Knoll looked up from the closed book in front of him and met her eyes. "Are you injured? Let me get the supplies – sit down; don't tax yourself."

"I'm not." By the time she found the words, Knoll was already halfway across the room, rummaging with his one usable arm through his supplies. "No, don't worry, I wasn't hurt at all. I'm fine." It wasn't quite true. Amelia's arms still ached from the force of the blows she'd dealt and countered, and she was sure the claws that had been fixed on her limbs had left their mark. "I just, I, uhm. . .do you know where the monsters come from?"

He stopped short at her words and turned back to face her, the light of the candle casting odd shadows on his face. He was pale enough to be one of those undead creatures, Amelia thought, and nearly as thin. She'd noticed the same things about Natasha, but at least Natasha never looked quite so downtrodden. There were days when she wondered if anything really made him happy.

"Where the monsters come from?" he repeated, eyebrow raised. "It is just the lingering influence of the evils we fought before. The remaining energy is enough to. . . ."

"Not that," Amelia cut in. "The bodies. They look like _people._"

Knoll carefully replaced the supplies he'd dug out and approached Amelia. He looked at her only through the corners of his eyes, as if afraid to fully meet her gaze. "What are you suggesting?"

"They were never. . . they were never people, were they?"

The question hung in the air in between them as Knoll chewed his lip – hopefully in contemplation, and not in aggravation. Finally, he held up a finger, then went back to the his bag of supplied and pulled out, with some struggle, a tome more worn than any of his others. He thumbed through the pages, muttering to himself as he ran his fingers along the worn text. Finally, he let out a soft "aha" and opened the book all the way, then pushed it toward Amelia. "Read this."

Amelia didn't have to imagine it being in some strange tongue. The characters were almost familiar, but missing parts she thought would make them letters and arranged in ways she couldn't recognize. "On. . . se . . .geberd. . . ?"

Knoll gasped and pulled the book back. "My apologies. I had. . . forgotten. This isn't taught normally, is it?" Before Amelia could answer, Knoll had found the section he had pointed to again and was murmuring the words aloud to himself. The didn't sound quite as Amelia had imagined them by the way they looked.

"What it says, roughly," he said, as he finally spoke words Amelia could understand, "is that the bodies of the revenants were believed – and mind you this text is hundreds of years old, and the scholars in those days were quite. . . no, my apologies, that is an unimportant detail – er, the bodies of the revenants, they are not derived of any mortal creature. Though they take the form of things we know, they are wholly the creation of their master."

"The Demon King, right?" Amelia caught the slight wince as Knoll silently nodded. "So. . . so there's no chance any person would come back like that, right?"

"Not without the influence of forbidden magic, no," Knoll answered, his voice a mere shadow of even its usual hushed tone. He closed the book and pushed it away with a small shake of his head. When he finally looked up at Amelia again, there was an odd expression on his face – a furrowing of his eyebrows, a pinch of his lips. He reached out suddenly and grabbed Amelia's hand, his slender fingers twisting in hers for just a moment. "I can promise you, it will never happen to anyone you love. Never."

Amelia swallowed hard. She had hoped to keep her reasons secret, but clearly, she had failed. "Thank you," she mumbled, as Knoll pulled his hand free.

"It was no trouble," he answered softly, running his hand through the bit of hair that dangled over his face. "Now, you said you were looking for Duessel, did you not?"

Amelia gasped. She had nearly forgotten. "Right! There's no one out patrolling the village – I have to hurry; I'm sorry!" She jolted out of the seat she'd taken and scrambled for the door.

"I believe he is still in the fields with Cormag – look there first," Knoll said above her commotion. Amelia was halfway out the door by the time he spoke, but she turned back around to poke her head inside.

"Thank you!" she repeated again, and it was only as she remounted Shanley and spurred her on again that Amelia realized that Knoll had smiled at her words.


	8. Hindsight

**Through These Nights**

Chapter Eight: Hindsight

**Author's notes:** My apologies for the long-ish wait. Life kind of ate me, and it's been pretty hard to work up the enthusiasm necessary for this. Let's hope that picks up again, yeah? Yeah.

So, this is the chapter where suddenly, stuff gets set up to happen – and where, le gasp, things become less gen. As a result, I feel the need to establish some basic world things here. I've meshed together bits of the two timelines within FE8. Although some of it sticks quite firmly to Ephraim's route – Natasha, for example, was present during Ephraim's attack on Grado Keep, which is impossible on Eirika's route – the disaster in Grado did _not_ happen immediately after the war, unlike what is shown on Ephraim's route.

Thank you to everyone reading, and hope you enjoy.

* * *

It was nearly midnight when Natasha returned to the cottage, her head aching and her feet begging for rest. She had forgotten how difficult it had been to work on her own, tending to the fevers and aches of the villagers without another set of eyes to assess the damage, another pair of arms to carry the heavy bags of potions and salves.

She slung her satchel over her shoulder, careful not to jostle it too harshly, lest the leather tear with the weight. She was always gentle with it, though it had held up well since Franz had given it to her, just as he'd promised it would. She could only wish he had as well.

At the thought, she pulled her arms tight around her body, telling herself it was only to fend off the chill in the night air. Winter, after all, was not a prospect she relished. The already arduous journeys from town to town would be near impossible once the frost came, especially in the south where the snow fell heaviest and the villages were the hardest hit.

Natasha was careful to stay quiet as she slipped through the door and into the warmth of the cottage. Expecting to find it dark and quiet, she was surprised to see there was still a candle burning and a figure bent over the small table. She carefully closed the door behind her and crept past Amelia's bedroll, managed to narrowly avoid the hand sprawled out across her path, and tucked the supplies at the edge of the chilled room before speaking.

"It's late. You should be asleep."

Knoll turned to face her, and she could see the circles around his eyes, the drawn, pale look of his cheeks. It was hardly the face of a healthy man, but it was better than he'd looked the night before as she tended to his ruined shoulder, and a far cry from the gaunt, haunted stare she recalled from the night he'd been found in that dank little cell. "I have work to do."

He waved vaguely over the papers and books spread in front of him, sending the flame of the candle into a mad dance along with the shadows it cast. Despite all her efforts to be more accepting, there was still something frightening about the image to Natasha. A sullen, haunted man hunched over ancient books, his face shadowed strangely by the flickering light – it was just as she'd imagined the castle scholars to look when her mentor described them, convened in the old passages of Grado Keep and dealing with the forbidden. As she quietly pulled up another chair and sat next to him, she avoided touching the worn, yellowed pages of his tomes, as if their creeping influence might somehow infect her.

"It can't wait until morning?" She considered reaching over and pushing the pen and paper away from him, or leaning in and snuffing the candle out, but she knew well that neither would do any good. Natasha could at least relate to that – the drive to work until she simply couldn't anymore, to ignore everyone who cautioned her to take care of herself.

"We leave early. Cormag will need the letters for Frelia, the inventory, the projected expenses . . . and I should draft another petition to Renais, even if it's of little use. . . oh, and I believe, in this tome, there should be something about the revenants – "

Knoll fell silent again, as if realizing it was unlike him to speak so much at a time, and turned his attention back to the shaky scrawl on the paper. Natasha watched him write for a moment, and nearly offered to take over – her writing was nearly as neat, after all, and taking inventory of the group's supplies couldn't be too different from tallying the hymn books in the convent – but she knew if the task were taken from him, he would fret about burdening everyone else, though, just as she would do, he would try to keep the embarrassment to himself.

"Cormag told me you went out today," Natasha said at last, her quiet voice just audible over the slow scratching of pen on thick paper. Knoll only gave a silent nod in return, not looking up from his work. "I'm. . . I'mglad you were able to." She would have preferred, of course, that he say in and let his arm heal, lest the wound reopen or fall prey to some sort of infection, but that was the sort of common sense she'd learned not to expect.

When he didn't answer, Natasha came a bit closer and reached for the edge of his shirt. "I'd like to see your shoulder, if that's all right." With a slight nod, he obliged and undid the front of the borrowed garment, then carefully pulled the loose fabric away from his bound wound. He winced as she pulled the bandages away and exposed the damage to the cool night air, but kept his gaze fixed firmly on his work.

"It seems to be healing well enough. Please, try not to stress it." It _was_ healing better than she had expected, given the shoddy job of healing she'd managed that night. It was still ugly, there was no doubt about that – a wide, ragged gash, with near-black bruises marring the pale skin on either side – but there was no flash of bone, and no taint of dirt or debris to be seen. Far from perfect, but hopefully enough to carry him until they reached the capital, and the care of healers more capable – and more well-funded – than she.

"I will be careful with it." He moved to rebind the wound himself as soon as Natasha pulled away, but she caught his hand before it could reach the dirtied bandages.

"You need fresh ones," she cautioned firmly, surprised at her own temerity. "And – " she paused and mentally recounted the supply of salves and ointments, and tried to estimate the strength remaining in her own staves and his – "I'll try to close it a bit more, and ease the pain, at least."

Knoll glanced up from his paperwork, only for a moment, his brow tensed slightly in a gesture that almost reminded her of Duessel. "We. . . cannot afford to waste such things on this, Sister Natasha," he protested, with as much force as she'd ever heard in his hushed voice. She paid the words little mind as she dug through the shrinking stacks of supplies and found a bit of clean linen and a vulnerary bottle to treat the wound.

"It isn't a waste." Before he could shrug away, Natasha pressed the staff to the torn skin and focused on repairing at least some of the damage, enough to lessen the pain in the long run and assure the bones would set properly. "We'll help more people with the two of us, won't we?" She forced a smile onto her face, just as she remembered her mentor advising for the sake of the unfortunate, but couldn't maintain it as Knoll gasped at the pain that came with the healing. His fingers clenched around the tip of the pen and trembled, before he gave in and finally pushed the work in front of him away.

Tempted as she was to pull back at the sound, Natasha continued on, keeping her thoughts on easing the skin together, binding the fibers of muscle and bone back to each other. She forced herself not to falter even as Knoll let out a sharp cry beneath her touch. He bit back the sound almost immediately as Amelia stirred in the bedroll across the room. Without thinking, Natasha offered him her free hand, and as if for once he hadn't thought about it himself, he grabbed hold, squeezing until his knuckles showed white.

Natasha pulled her staff away only when she thought she could do no more without causing harm. The bruising at the edges of the wound had faded from near-black to a rich shade of violet, almost the same color as the robes she remembered Knoll wearing. The gash itself, though nowhere near fully healed, was closed enough that the flesh only barely showed through, a thick slice of deep red on near-white.

"Be very careful," she murmured, as she reached for the fresh linen and set to re-covering the damaged flesh. "It's going to be stiff, and it's going to ache. But if you push too hard, it might tear again, and that would be even worse."

He stared at her, his bottom lip still clenched tight between his teeth, his dark eyes still wide in something between awe and terror. "Thank you, Sister Natasha," he murmured at last, as she tied off the bandages and helped him pull his shirt back into place.

"If I'm to call you only 'Knoll', there's no need for you to call me 'Sister'." It was somewhat reassuring to hear the villagers and missionaries address her as a cleric, like a reminder of who she was, where she had been. She didn't need it every day, not from someone who likely didn't think of it as a term of respect.

"But you _are_ a cleric, are you not? I am hardly a master of anything."

Natasha couldn't find it in her to believe him. If he was not some sort of master, how would he have worked his way into the position he held at the castle? Surely only someone with an exemplary command of magic would have been called to work alongside Grado's prince as Knoll had been. As she watched him gnaw at his bottom lip and carefully avoid her gaze, she realized the outcome of that work would leave anyone doubting their worth.

"Please, listen," she said, reaching for his hand again before he could grab for the pen and paper at the edge of the table. "We've lost a lot of the same things, haven't we? I. . . I believe we can understand each other better than anyone else might."

"Everything I lost was of my own doing," he answered, his lips pressed into something that wasn't quite a frown. "I fear we are in quite different situations." There was an edge to his voice that Natasha couldn't quite identify. Perhaps it was at least partly lingering pain from the work she had done, a thought that made her wince and want to apologize despite herself, but there was also something else to it entirely, something she knew she could not repair.

She let Knoll pull his fingers away, though he didn't return right away to his writing as she expected him to. He took a moment instead to glance at Amelia, who'd thankfully fallen still once again, and then to grab for the tome he'd pushed away. As he flipped through the worn pages, Natasha tried to find the words to answer him.

"It wasn't your fault."

"Whose was it, then?" She watched him run his fingers along the aging text and trace the elaborate diagrams, none of which made any sense to her. "You were quite eager, before, to put the blame on our research and disciplines, were you not?"

"I was wrong." She wanted to pull the book away from him and make him look at her, really _look_ at her, but she knew it would be just as useless as pushing the writing away might have been. "No one could have known. I should have said that. . . a long time ago. No one could have known, except perhaps the prince himself – "

Natasha wished she could swallow the words back down almost the moment they left her lips. Had the pang in her stomach not hit her before, it surely would have as Knoll slowly turned to face her, his gaze as intense as she'd ever seen it.

"Just. . . what do you mean to imply by that?" She could never tell what his expressions meant, whether he was interested or angry or pained. Each one seemed to be only a slight variation on a frown.

"W-what I meant was. . . " Natasha had never been an eloquent speaker. Even Father MacGregor had said as much. _Perhaps spreading Latona's teachings is not your truest calling, my child, _he'd said once, with all the kindness anyone could muster for the sake of such a failure. She knew, by the sharpness of Knoll's gaze, that she'd have to find the perfect words this time, lest she ruin what little trust they had. "What I meant to say, was. . . that. . . you could not have known what Prince Lyon meant to do. No one could have."

From the way Knoll's fingers clenched at the edge of the tome, and the way his eyes narrowed just slightly, Natasha guessed that she had chosen the wrong words after all.

"What Prince Lyon meant to do," Knoll began, his voice tight and measured, as if trying not to shout, "was prevent the disaster we're facing today. Nothing more."

Natasha felt herself shrink ever so slightly under his gaze. Perhaps it might not have seemed so harsh coming from anyone else – Duessel would often clench his teeth like that, and Cormag had always been quick to scowl when he was upset – but somehow, the way Knoll's mouth curled into an almost-sneer, was enough to make Natasha flinch. She forced herself to stay where she was, and not to look away. She wouldn't ruin this.

"I. . . I admired Prince Lyon as well. Don't forget that." At least, she thought she had. She'd only spoken with the prince on a few occasions, but she heard of him. Everyone did. She heard of him pleading with his father to extend aid to the farmers in the south when the droughts hit, halting the ships despite all the protests and saving countless lives – but like everyone else, she, too, had failed to notice the prince's descent into madness. "But. . . you cannot tell me you saw nothing of Prince Lyon himself in the war. It was _his_ action, _his_ decision that started this, not yours– "

Natasha was cut off by the sudden sound of Knoll's chair scraping against the floorboards as he pushed away from the table and stood. The flame of candle trembled and wavered, but remained lit, even as Knoll's arm swept above it. Natasha flinched as first as his too-loose sleeve barely missed the fire, and again as his hand came close to her face. It seemed for a moment he meant to hit her, and Natasha might not have blamed him for it. He didn't come even close, instead stopping just in front of her face, tensing his hand in warning.

"Mind your tongue."

His tone was cold, civil, despite the slight quake in the words and the unmistakeable ferocity in his glare. His hand hovered just inches away from Natasha's face, close enough that she could smell the drying ink on the tips of his slender fingers.

"I speak only the truth, Maste– Knoll."

Knoll lowered his hand, almost catching Natasha's hair as he did. "Even if that were so. . .there is a saying – perhaps you have heard it before – 'speak nothing but good of the dead'." He stepped back, so the shadows from the window hung over his face, pooling in the hollows of his cheeks and eyes. "If one were to cast blame, could it not be said, too, that your own mentor was at fault? He waited until after Renais was lost to intervene, did he not?"

"That's not – "

"Not the same?" He spoke as if narrating a textbook, listing figures and dates with no meaning, no attachment. "He was complacent. Content to hope things would improve, not doing anything until it was too late, isn't that right?"

It was right. Natasha knew it. She wondered if it was a sin to nod, to acknowledge such a flaw, as if she wasn't guilty of it herself. Though she knew it was true, and that her mentor would forgive her, she couldn't bring herself to do anything but squeeze her fists tighter and bite down hard on the inside of her cheek.

"It wasn't just him. You, me, Duessel, Cormag – all of us were there. It wasn't as if there weren't warning signs We should have seen them. We should have tried to help, but none of us did anything. Not a single one of us. Not until the very last moment, and then –"

"I'm sorry." The words surprised Natasha, but she found that she meant them, or at least, she wanted to mean them. Even if it weren't true, the sensation of his fingers tightening just slightly around hers was enough to make her keep lying. "It was hasty of me to speak as I did, and wrong. I. . . I know that you tried."

Knoll squeezed his eyes shut and nodded, paying no mind to the way his hair scattered across his face. "It wasn't enough," he answered softly. He tried to pull his hand free, but Natasha held on as tight as she could.

_You haven't a gift for sermons, _her mentor had said, _but that doesn't mean you shouldn't speak._

"What you're doing now. . . . It's all anyone could ask of you. It is enough."

It was enough for him. Perhaps he could comfort himself with the knowledge that he'd saved at least a few people, that somewhere there was at least one person who could thank him for their life. Perhaps he didn't spend his nights recounting the faces he couldn't save, imagining that perhaps Latona and even the gods themselves had forsaken their home and everyone in it. Perhaps _trying_ would have been adequate in the eyes of his precious prince, no matter how spectacular the failure. Lyon's own deeds seemed precedent enough.

"It isn't." At last, Knoll worked his hand free and leaned over the table, as if to grab at his pen and papers again. Instead, he wiped the nib of his pen off, closed the jar of ink, and blew out the nearly exhausted candle. "As you said. . . this can most likely wait until morning. It wouldn't hurt me to wake earlier, either." Natasha could make out the way he wiped the wax from the edges of the stand from the light through the window, the one he'd been sleeping next to. Despite the irony, she wondered if he might be afraid of the dark. Somehow, it was nice to think so.

"I'm sorry," she said again, more honestly this time.

He only shrugged his good shoulder in response and answered, "You should sleep."

* * *

Genarog was already saddled with supplies – fresh water, dried meat, spare boots, handwoven blankets tied into a roll. Cormag almost pitied him. Under the weight, the wyvern fidgeted and scowled, as if he took the task as a personal insult.

"Don't look like that," Cormag chided softly, as he tucked the papers Knoll had given him into the side pocket of one of the harnessed packs. "You've done worse. And you'll like Frelia." In response, Genarog only snorted.

"You take care, lad," Duessel called, and Cormag gave a wave in return. The wagon was filled, though more sparsely than it had been when they had arrived. Amelia was pressing a carrot into Shanley's mouth to distract her from the noise, a trick Cormag had taught her himself. Genarog, of course, wasn't often one for carrots, but a bit of spare turkey meat had much the same effect.

"You're all headed for the capital, right?" Duessel nodded firmly before returning to his work, a sure sign that he was concerned. It would be a hard journey for all of them, even on horseback, Cormag knew. If only they could have taken to flying the way he had, he thought, perhaps it might be better. Then again, wyverns were more costly to feed, more choosy with their handlers, more difficult to find shelter for, more frightening to the citizenry. It was better to avoid it, in reality.

As if catching wind of his rider's thoughts, Genarog gave him a pointed glare, huffed, and with all the ceremony of a cow kicking over a bucket of milk, shrugged the heaviest of his burdens off into the dirt.

Cormag knew firsthand that wyverns were _smug_, and he could have sworn Genarog was smirking as he set to replacing the pack and tying it down properly. Just to spite his mount, he paid the expression no mind, choosing instead to watch the others. He spotted Knoll speaking with a village woman and a small child, a pale, thin thing who seemed ready to fall over with the strength of the breeze. The woman seemed intent on pressing a bundle of what seemed to be blankets into Knoll's arms. It was a gift, like so many others, that the givers couldn't afford to lose, but that Cormag himself had learned not to refuse. It would probably be left in some little hamlet on the way to the capital, just like so many other gifts before it.

Genarog snorted again at his neglect, prompting a little flick at the temple from Cormag. It wouldn't do to take a pouting wyvern up to the skies – at least Genarog was well trained enough to know when sulking was and wasn't acceptable. Cormag had worked with far worse.

He spotted Natasha loading the last of her staves into the wagon of supplies, then going to speak for a moment with Amelia. He hoped she'd slept, though by the slowness of her gait and the way she leaned a bit on Shanley's side, it seemed unlikely.

_Not surprising,_ Cormag thought with a sigh, one heavy enough that Genarog felt obliged to mimic it. "Right, right, I know, we should go."

For a moment, Cormag thought of going back over to the others, bidding them goodbye, wishing them well. The idea lingered for a moment before he shook his head and hoisted himself up onto Genarog's back, much to the wyvern's delight. He'd had enough goodbyes to last him a lifetime, after all, and it was better, in the end, not to stay too attached.

He dug his heels into Genarog's sides and gave the harness a tug, pulling his limbs in tight as the wings spread wide. Only as they lifted off together did he bring one hand free to wave to the familiar faces below.

_I'll see them all in the capital, _he reminded himself, as his friends and the village faded from his sharp sight. _Unless they die from the cold, or get mauled by revenants, or get caught in the rebellion, or – _

He swallowed his fears and leaned into the wind, spurring Genarog north, toward Frelia, and to everything he hoped might wait there.


	9. Home

**Author's note:** I'm reorganizing the format here, so FFn's stupid links over the side there don't mess up my centering. Chances are no one but me minds, but hey, whatever.

Anyway, this is a bit of a shorter chapter than I originally intended, thanks to some POV oddities that I wanted to fix. As such, the next bit will be up pretty soon. (Definitely sooner than 2-3 months, I promise!) As always, feedback is loved.

* * *

**Through These Nights **

Chapter Nine: Home

The state of the capital seemed to improve with every subsequent visit Duessel recalled. When first he'd returned to the city after the quake, it was barely recognizable, a mess of shattered stone and ruined earth, with only the ancient Keep standing tall in its center.

In place of the rubble, now, there were clear roads and light, simple buildings, shops and houses built from the remnants of what once had been. There were children about, playing, rather than digging through ruins in hope of finding something – or some_one_ – familiar. He could smell fresh bread, and hear vendors calling out the descriptions of their wares. They were far from the fine Jehan spices and richly dyed cloths he recalled, but even seeing the homespun linens offered by women, maybe widows, and humble little cakes sold by boys young enough that they might not remember war was enough to bring a smile to his face. It was still not, and might never again be, the grand city he remembered from his youth, but at least it was no longer dead.

He glanced to his side and spotted Amelia, looking over the same scene with what seemed to be even a bit of wonder, amazement. It occurred to Duessel that she'd barely known the capital before, its towering monuments and mansions, the pristine grandeur bordering on excess. Perhaps this was the city she would come to know, the city she would come to call home – and perhaps that wasn't truly a bad thing.

Before Duessel could reach in his sack and pull out a bit of coin to hand to Amelia, who seemed entranced by the jam cakes at the side of the streets, he heard Natasha's voice behind him. "It's a amazing, how quickly they're recovering." It was impossible not to hear the slight emphasis on _they_. Of course, the funds from Renais had gone largely to the biggest city, the grandest. No one would notice the struggling villages far to the south, or deep in the reaches of the eastern marshes, but anyone could look to the capital and see it it bloom.

"I find it refreshing," he answered, forcing a smile. "We have to start somewhere, don't we, lass?"

She nodded tightly as she came into his line of vision, hair bedraggled and face stained with mud. "Yes. . . that is true, it is progress, and yet. . . ."

"A nice start for _us_ would be a bath." Duessel reached out and lightly clapped Natasha's shoulder, wincing slightly at the bit of grime his fingers left behind. "I'm sure the chancellor can manage at least that. Until then, don't worry yourself with all that." He smiled a bit more easily, then, though even he wasn't certain it was fully honest.

"I'll try." Natasha paused for a moment to pull her shawl tighter around herself against the growing chill in the air. Duessel could see where the work was taking its toll on her – dark circles around her eyes, the slightest creases at the corners of her lips. "I suppose we're all a bit used to worrying – uhm, by the way, have you seen. . ."

Before Natasha could finish her sentence, the last member of the group stumbled up behind her. It didn't take long for Duessel to realize what had held Knoll up – he was carrying a bag full of the very cakes Amelia had been eying. He offered one to Amelia, who seemed to barely resist the urge to hug him, and one each to Duessel and Natasha.

"My apologies," he said, but only after devouring one of the cakes himself. "It's been, ah, years since I had one of these, and I. . . ."

Duessel shook his head. "Don't apologize. Thank you." He took the offered pastry, though he'd never been one for sweets, and with another dishonest smile, pretended he hadn't noticed the worn-out history tome now sitting on the cake vendor's table.

* * *

Grado Keep itself was still standing, though parts of it, the newer bits, largely, were crumbled and broken. It was hardly the pristine monument Duessel still clearly remembered – the imperial banners no longer flew above, replaced with the seal of the burgeoning new government, and its once opulent gardens were scarce and bare, with only a few old fruit trees and perennials remaining. Duessel could still see the peach trees the young Empress Adele had so adored, the same ones her son would hide under with his stacks of books when the air was warm.

As the group reached the door, a young guardsman clad in Grado's purpure and sable came to their side. It took only a moment for him to recognize them and lead them inside, through the familiar corridors and the great hall, into the office of the chancellor chosen three years previous by Renais.

Chancellor Reims was nearly nothing like Grado's last emperor, save for the high, defined cheekbones and pale hair passed down from their shared bloodline. He was slim and tall, even from behind the worn mahogany desk, with an easy manner in the way he moved his hands and the sun-stained skin of the country aristocrat he still was at heart. He spoke like one, too – that slow, relaxed drawl with just the slightest hint of Rausten's twang mixed in, the sort of voice Duessel had always imagined when he thought of idleness. And though his dark hair was streaked with near-white, a new development from when Duessel had seen him last, there was still a bit of that careless smile on Reims' face as he looked up to greet the new arrivals.

"General Duessel. Good to see you again. And ah. . ." Reims narrowed his tired eyes at the other three, and Duessel wasn't sure whether he was trying to recall their names from the last time they'd met, or if he was only pretending to do so. ". . .all the rest of you, as well."

Belatedly, Amelia tried to give a hasty bow, but Natasha gently caught her arm halfway through and whispered something – Duessel thought he heard "improper" and "royalty" mixed in there. His ears had to be failing him; he still remembered the hushed words he could catch in the great hall when the emperor held court. At least his joints didn't pain him _too_ much, save for on the coldest nights in winter and in the spring before the rains, and he could still keep up with the younger recruits.

He held off on introducing the other members of the party, only nodding in courtesy to the greeting. None of the others made any motion, either; Natasha remained at Amelia's side, quietly reminding her of what was and was not proper, and Knoll stayed as close to the door as he could with an expression that could only be described as a scowl. Nonetheless, Duessel carried on. "And you as well, Chancellor. I understand we sent no notice before arriving, but the matter was –"

"If you mean to tell me all about the latest _'rebellion_', I've already heard," Reims cut in, with a dismissing wave of his hand over the books and papers scattered in front of him. "I have no doubts that we'll manage through it, as we have each time before."

"I understand, Chancellor, but this is hardly, from the sound of it, the smaller uprisings we've heard from before. If this movement gains more momentum, we could be faced with a full scale civil war."

Reims drummed his fingers on the edge of his desk and gave an uneasy grin. "With all due respect, General, I may not be of royal blood, but I wasn't put in this position just for my good looks, you know. I understand exactly what we could be looking at."

It was hardly for _competance, _either, Duessel knew – after he'd turned down the job himself, it had seemed logical to choose the closest known relative of the royal line. Of course, it was never enough for the people – Reims was a cousin from the wrong side of the family, and had little, if any, relation to Grado's founder. No amount of affectation could change that, not for the common citizens, and not, by the unease in Natasha's stance next to Amelia and the barely perceptible narrowing of Knoll's eyes, for even a band of traitors.

"Understood, Chancellor, but – "

"I'm taking this threat as seriously as it needs to be taken at the moment. What military we have left is ready to combat any threat, regardless of its origin."

It was a grim picture, and one Duessel didn't care to contemplate for long. Of course it would be necessary, if things came to that – it wasn't the first time such a movement had been heard of, and none of the others had gotten that far, so he hoped –

"You can't do that!"

Amelia pulled free of Natasha's gentle grip and stepped forward, though she stopped short of slamming her hands on the table as Duessel had feared she might. Perhaps he was thinking more of another one of his students.

Reims only arched one eyebrow, as if she were only a rowdy child. "I beg your pardon?"

"You can't just send us – _soldiers,_ I mean, to fight our own like that! There has to be some other way –"

"And what exactly would you suggest instead?" Reims gave a light shrug, though there was a tension in it he couldn't mask. He might have been more like Vigarde than Duessel had thought. "That I sit here and wait until whichever band of peasants it is arrives – _if _they arrive at all all, that is – and then try to chat reasonably with the lot of them? Yes, I'm sure that will work just beautifully."

Natasha reached for Amelia's arm again and whispered something – soft, soothing, Duessel could tell that much, though he could make out nothing of what Knoll mumbled from the back of the room as he clenched his fists and backed closer to the wall.

"As I said before, I mean no disrespect," Reims said airily. "But. . .I do believe the words of my own experienced advisers will take precedence over. . ." He looked up and scanned the four gathered around him. ". . .a soldier, a cleric, a scholar, and a retiree, am I correct?"

In another time, Duessel might have leveled a sharp word or two in return – _"You've done nothing to earn your place here,"_ or _"Mind your words; they've seen more than you ever will,"_ but he knew Reims was in the right. Even as he watched Amelia's shoulders slump in defeat, he couldn't think of a better solution, save for what he could remember.

"For what it's worth," he began with a measure of caution, "even before the last war, Grado was not without dissent, and the policy of the late emperor was–"

"Emperor Vigarde and his family are hardly where I care to look for inspiration, General." Reims looked straight past Duessel as he spoke, his voice firm and cold. He was one of the few who knew of all that had happened, every bit of resurrection, possession, and madness that had taken hold of the royal line, and it showed in the way his eyebrows furrowed and his lip curled ever so slightly upward. "Our country hardly needs another soft-hearted madman to lead the way to disaster."

The line seemed well-rehearsed, as if it was the sort of thing Reims repeated to himself in the face of ugly decisions like this. Ugly, but necessary, and Duessel knew again, he was right. He forced himself into silence, hoping they would only be shown to their rooms and the situation would be diffused.

Instead, he felt his stomach lurch as Knoll stepped forward from the edge of the room, mud-encrusted boots making only the slightest noise even in his haste. Surely, he'd understand that losing his temper here could risk everything they'd worked for –

"A man with no birthright and barely any roots here should think more carefully of what he says."

_Or. . . perhaps not._ Duessel cringed inwardly, but held himself back. It was too late to intervene. He waited for Reims to send them out, or possibly do worse.

Instead, the chancellor smiled, with a bit more ease."Perhaps you can instruct me on the finer points of rulership, sometime, Sir. . . ?" He waited for a name with a cock of his chin and a quirk of his brow, one that Duessel could not discern as teasing or inviting. It seemed Knoll approved of neither option; he hissed something under his breath that might have been a curse and stormed out of the room as Natasha nearly fell over herself with apologies.

"Don't concern yourself with that. I've heard worse." Reims leaned back into his chair, letting the sun catch his hair and highlight the gray that hadn't been visible before. It seemed the work he had taken truly was more than one man ought to handle – despite himself, Duessel was glad for his own refusal. "Now then. Peter –" at the call, the young man who'd led them in returned – "will see to it that you're made comfortable here. Even your angry friend, if it pleases him. I'm sure you're all tired and hungry after your work out there – I'm not so dense as to not see that."

_True enough._ Duessel swallowed the mounting objection in his throat and gave a firm nod. "Our thanks," he said on behalf of them all, as Natasha was still too rattled to reply and Amelia seemed ready to cause yet another scene. He gently pushed them both forward a bit before taking his leave, despite the sound of Reims' light chuckle as the door swung shut behind them.

* * *

It was late when Duessel finally tracked Knoll down long enough to speak, late enough that the chill in the air made his bones start to ache and the moonless night, despite the torches scattered about, only served to remind him that his eyes would start to go, too. The scholar was resting in the courtyard, clad in the change of clothes he'd been afforded, his gaze fixed upwards on the bare limbs of the old peach trees.

"You should be inside, at this hour." Duessel tried to be gentle in his words, but as always, they came out a bit gruffer than he'd intended. Knoll didn't seem to mind, only lightly shrugging one shoulder in response. If the castle healers had tended at all to the injured one – if he'd even allowed them to – it had clearly made little difference.

"I'm only stopping before I head to the inn, General. There's no need to stay longer than necessary in there."

Not unexpected – not for any of them, really – to refuse the quarters they might have been offered. Duessel had his own concerns about spending the night in the Keep; there were too many memories buried in its great walls. But there was more to this, he knew. He'd half expected to be asked why he hadn't spoken of the other efforts, of how the latest uprising could have taken them by surprise, but something in the quiet between them told him it wasn't necessary.

"I've asked that you stay near Natasha, on the far east wing, so you won't be staying anywhere close to your old quarters, you know," Duessel added at last, letting the words about warfare go unspoken.

"I always meant for that last night in the dungeons to be the last time I slept in that place." Knoll sighed and looked back to the ground, where his small satchel of belongings rested at his feet. "Of course, I didn't quite expect. . . well. You know."

There was nothing that could be done to sway that. Duessel knew better than to try. There was something too familiar about the stubborn edge to his voice, the tilt of his chin, the glint of steel in his eyes."And how are you going to pay for an inn, then, lad?" Knoll made a vague gesture to his satchel and shrugged again – typical, to have analyzed everything but the essential. "Pawning off your tomes might work for a village child, but an innkeeper? You know better. Did you mean to sleep in the streets if it didn't work?" Yet another half-hearted shrug and a mumbled apology. It was the sort of oversight, he imagined, that was born from being ignorant of everything outside the castle walls, save for the trials and aftermath of war.

Duessel forced back his impatience with a reminder of that and dug through his own things to retrieve the coin he'd meant to give Amelia that morning. "Here. It should be enough to afford you a room – and some food, too, don't forget. That light dinner you ate and jam cakes won't carry you through the night."

Knoll began to object, but Duessel silenced him with a firm shake of his head. "Go on, then, if that's what you'd like. Sleep well." With a quick swallow and finally a nod, the scholar picked up his satchel and turned away, setting off through the gates of the garden and back into the surrounding city. Duessel stayed to watch for a moment – not the retreating figure, but the familiar sway of the peach branches above – before he smiled to himself and returned to the Keep.


	10. Relaxation

Author's note: "Definitely sooner than 2-3 months, I promise!" Hahahaaaaa. I'm going to stop making promises like that. Anyway uhm, apologies for the unexpected hiatus on this fic. Hopefully life will be a bit more cooperative with me this time around and I'll be able to keep up with it. Apologies, also, for the roughness and shortness of this chapter – mostly I just wanted to get the story going again, so it's briefer than I'd like it to be. Hope you enjoy nonetheless, and as always thanks for reading and everything.

* * *

**Through These Nights**

Chapter 10: Relaxation

Natasha hissed slightly as the warm bathwater creeped up her ankles and chafed by long hours of riding and walking. It was a relief to finally be free of her rough leggings and ragged blouse, but she couldn't seem to set her mind at ease. The lavender and rose seemed only to make her feel more agitated, rather than the relaxation for which they were meant.

She forced her anxiety back, or tried to, at least. _You've worked so hard,_ she told herself, though it rang false even in her own mind._ You deserve a rest._

After all, tt wasn't as if the water in the bath could fly to the mouths of the sick and starving she'd seen along the way. If she didn't use it to rinse out the kinks in her hair and scrub the stink and grime and dried blood from her skin, it wouldn't somehow wash the hair of some villager left without clean water or ease the fever of a sick child. There was nothing that could do anything as miraculous as that, she knew, and her mentor had always said to be grateful for the gifts afforded her.

_Wickedness thrives in excess,_ he'd said once, too. Natasha still remembered the afternoon he'd caught her eyeing the richly dyed, gilt-lined fabrics hanging from the carts of vendors in the marketplace. _Rejoice in what you have,_ he'd said then, _and covet not_.

Natasha felt her back and fingers tense near immediately. There was nothing like excess to describe this – a simple cleric immersed in a deep, hot bath prepared by royal servants, soaked with rich oils and soaps, with a change of clean, soft, rich clothing waiting for her in the corner. She stopped, fingers entangled in her long hair, and sank lower still into the bath.

She couldn't recall how long they were meant to stay in the capital. Part of her wished to leap out of the tub, throw on whatever clothing she happened to grab hold of first, and leave as soon as possible. Another part was finally beginning to realize how soothing the bath water was against her aching back and sore arms, how warm and comfortable the palace was, how much she had missed the feeling of a full belly and a full night's rest.

Natasha leaned back and let her hair fall into the water, staring up and counting the cracks on the ceiling above and trying to clear her mind, to no avail. All she could imagine was the ruined landscape she'd left behind, the shambles still left from houses toppled in the quake, the widows and grieving parents still suffering from the war.

_You deserve to rest for a while,_ she insisted in her mind, only to meet the words herself with _no, you don't._

It was useless. There was no way she could just lie there and luxuriate. Perhaps she couldn't leave right that moment as she so dearly wanted to, but she could at least do something, couldn't she?

The water was already tinted gray-brown from dirt as Natasha gripped the edge of the basin and pulled herself out. For a moment, she felt a pang as she imagined what the staff might think – abandoning a bath like that after they'd gone to all the trouble of drawing it for her.

_I'll have to apologize later,_ she thought, before turning away with a shake of her head.

She grabbed the thick towel which had been laid out for her along with the change of clothing. A proper cleric's garb, of course, spared from one of the other sisters, none of whom had been familiar to her. There was nearly no one familiar within the palace's walls or in the surrounding city outside the people she had been traveling with for all that time. Those who'd objected to the war had met their end the same way her mentor had, and those who had not must have gone down with the prince-

_Stop. Enough._

She shook her head and gathered the fresh clothing afforded her. Clean underthings, a fresh shirt, thick thick hose suited to the cold ahead, and, of course, the familiar white habit. She dressed in all save the last item, which she held out in front of her and studied for a moment.

There was no doubt she was still a woman of faith, but the sight of the thing made her stomach lurch. All she could think of were the missionaries riding in from other countries, shaking their heads, murmuring about how it all served Grado right after everything.

"May the saints forgive me, then."

Natasha folded the white garment back as neatly as she could and tucked it neatly back where she'd found it.

Natasha's first thought had been to check up on Amelia. After the confrontation with the chancellor, she'd been uncharacteristically quiet all throughout dinner. When she finally found her way back to the guest rooms on the far east wing of the palace, however, Amelia was already fast asleep, curled tight in a bed that had to be far more than a simple soldier could be used to.

It was more than Natasha was used to as well. She couldn't imagine sleeping in such a place. It was somehow even more lush than the accommodations she'd always imagined royals must have. Not that she had much experience with royalty - she was hardly a vital member of Grado's court, and the few monarchs she'd met during the war were in nothing like a position to show her what the life was meant to be like.

She felt a quick twist in her gut as she recalled one of them, the tip of his hat as he turned to head back toward Jehanna, but quickly shook it off.

You have things to do now, she told herself. Things to do here, in your home. Don't linger on such foolish things.

She turned away from the bedroom and followed the sight of the light in the next one over. The door was cracked open just a bit, enough that she could peer in undetected and spy General Duessel, still awake and studying something by the light of an oil lamp at the far corner of the desk he was sitting at. She took a step back, as quietly as possible, and was readying herself to knock on the door when he turned just so slightly to face the cracked-open door.

"Come ahead inside, then," he said, with the same firm warmth in his voice as she'd come to expect. Of course, he'd hear her. It would be too easy to think she could go unnoticed.

Natasha opened the door as quietly as she could, so as not to wake anyone else, and slipped inside, shivering slightly at the chill in the air against her still-wet skin and hair. "My apologies for coming this late; I know you must be tired, General, and I-"

Duessel shook his head and pushed his work to the side - a map, it seemed, to her surprise. She'd imagined a man like Duessel might have Grado's entire landscape committed to memory, after all those years. Yet another foolish thought.

"You should be resting," he said, with the sort of frown that always managed to make her insides lurch with guilt. "Or can't you sleep?"

"No, I just. . . well, I suppose it is that, in a way."

"I'm not surprised. Sit down, lass."

He never failed to make her feel like a child, and Natasha was never quite sure whether or not that was a bad thing. She did as she was told and took a seat at the edge of the bed.

"Hard to get used to, isn't it?" Duessel asked before she could speak again. "Thought about asking to sleep in my old chambers, myself, but. . .I'm sure you understand."

Stiffly, Natasha nodded, unsure of what else she could add.

"I thought it might be nice to come back here again. I suppose I was wrong for the lot of us, wasn't I?"

Despite his words, Duessel didn't seem to be apologizing. He was a man of regrets, Natasha thought, but not of apologies.

"I don't believe you meant ill by it. It's all right. I'm all right."

"Are you really?" Duessel turned to her fully, pushing his work to the side. Natasha felt herself shrink a bit under his gaze, still as intense as she imagined a military commander's had to be. "There's no need to lie, you know. We'll be staying here until Cormag arrives back. There's plenty of time for you to rest."

"I know. It's only. . . ." Natasha drew her arms around herself, hoping it would only look as if the room was too chilly. By the way the corners of his mouth turned down even further, the general was not convinced.

"I understand, I think" He paused for a moment, looking away from her and to the window at his side. "It's looking better and better, but. . . this still isn't the capital we imagined, is it?"

"I expected that. I don't expect things will ever be quite like that again, after all. As much as we'd like it to be, we can't rebuild everything we've lost here, can we?" She'd tried not to think too much about it, but it was often unavoidable. She knew, of course, that not all the clerics she no longer saw around had simply lost their faith or moved on, that every soldier who'd perished in the war had been the member, perhaps the breadwinner, of a family she might have seen along the way. "I still hope that someday Grado might be as strong as it once was, but. . . I do not honestly know _how._"

Duessel let out a short sigh, as if he'd been holding it in the entire time. "Yes, those were my fears as well. Listen, Natasha. If you find that you cannot sleep here, tonight. . . ."

"I don't believe I can, no." Everything in her wanted to leave the capital again, to ride back out and somehow make up for all that she could not fix. There were too many houses falling apart, too many grieving families to soothe, too many wounds to heal for her to linger like this, but she knew there wasn't much choice in the matter.

"Well, you know, Knoll felt the same way." Natasha forced herself not to cringe. "Perhaps you could go check up on him – might that make you feel better?"

Natasha was almost honest. She wanted to say _no, I'd rather not, _given how cool he'd been to her when last they'd spoken. But he wasn't too bad, she knew. Not intentionally. She shifted her weight from side to side for a moment, then finally gave a slight nod. "It might," she said, and when Duessel took longer than she expected, she worried that he'd seen right through her. But he only smiled again, if a bit grimly, and reached up to pat her shoulder.

"Right then. I hope it does just that."


	11. Resignation

Notes: Again, this is a little shorter than I'd originally planned. I felt like things were a little overloaded, though, so I pushed a scene back into the next chapter. Short chapters are more fun, anyway, right? (say yes.)

Anyway, uh, not much else to say here, except that if you're feeling awkward or confused about some of the events within, it's probably intentional on my part. Hope you enjoy nonetheless, and thanks for sticking around despite my sporadic updates.

**Through These Nights**

Chapter 11: Resignation

Knoll had yet to sleep. He had tried, but it was little easier setting his thoughts to rest than it had been in the keep itself. Not for the first time, he'd tried to have a drink – quiets the mind, he'd been assured, but he was certain, then, that the bartender had underestimated his capacity for thinking.

Not surprising. The patrons at the pub were hardly the sort of men he'd have consorted with only a few years previous. At one point, it might have been humbling, even humiliating to sit among such a crowd of simple low-lifes, people who'd probably never read a book thicker than their own meaty hands, if at all. As it was, he'd found himself staring up from the murky depths of his watered-down drink and wondering if any of them had even come close to failing as much as he had. The conclusions he'd come to were hardly comforting.

Despite the discomfort of sitting among so many _normal_ people, former soldiers, mercenaries, merchants, he'd decided it was better to stay for the night. Better than staying in the halls he knew too well, anyway, even if it was all the way on the other side from the libraries and corridors that had been his old haunts.

The commotion from below had died down. All there was to occupy him was the pattern of the wood on the ceiling. It was easy to tell where it had been patched up- he was amazed at how much looked old, left intact despite the ruin around the city. It was senseless, if he thought about it too long, and thinking about it too long was all he felt inclined to do.

_Were I one of the ones left on the street, I might wonder why this place still stood._ He counted the older, darker planks, one two, three, four, stretched on above him as he pressed his body closer to the window. _But were my own building to survive such an event, I would wonder what I did to deserve its preservation. _

It sounded like a classic problem, the sort of thing he might have seen in a philosophy book. At one point, he might have spent some time trying to puzzle over it, use it to justify some theory or knock down another. As it is, the thought of it made him feel sicker to his stomach than the drink already had, and he pushed it away by turning out to watch the clouds drift over the moon through the gaps between the older structures still standing outside.

He had just closed his eyes to try to sleep again, expecting little success, when he heard the knock on his door. _Likely the innkeeper, _he thought, trying to remember if he'd paid in full or only in part for the room. He shoved the rough, plain covers down to the edge of the bed and padded, still barefoot, to the other side of the room. The worst that could happen, he supposed, was that it might be an especially dim burglar, and he had little to steal, anyway.

The door creaked open, and he was presented with a possibility he had not even considered. She was under-dressed for the cold, in only her plain traveling clothes, and shaking a bit for the oversight. He fought the urge to sigh.

"Sister Natasha." It might have been courteous to invite her inside, perhaps offer her the blanket now that he wasn't using it, but he decided she'd known full well what she was getting into when she went out as she was. The consequences were hers to face.` "It's late. Is something the matter?"

She shook her head, hair rustling lightly against the soft fabric of her shirt. "No, it's just that. . . well, General Duessel had told me you were here, and. . . ."

_And you did not consider the possibility that I did not wish for your company? _Somehow, Knoll managed to hold his tongue. "I see," he said instead. "Well, I'm quite well, and I'm sure you need rest after the trip, so –"

He watched Natasha set her jaw, resolute as she had been with so many fights and healings before. "I had thought you and I might be having similar thoughts, so. . . "

"As I said, Sister, I am fine." He reached for the door, hoping that closing it would at least shut Natasha out for the time being, but she caught it with her foot before he could.

"Let me come in. Just for a few moments."

He finally let out the sigh he had been holding in, and briefly entertained the idea of telling Duessel off for this. He doubted he ever would, but the thought was tempting. Wordlessly, he gestured

Natasha inside and set to relighting the candles at the bedside table.

She was worse off than she had looked in the dark, pale and still a bit damp. No wonder she'd been shaking. She shifted awkwardly from side to side before Knoll finally pointed her to the bed and to the blanket crumpled up at the edge of it.

"You can't afford to be sick," he said, trying to keep his voice level. "We cannot stay too long, and if you think we will not leave you behind—"

"That won't be necessary."

Knoll ignored her and firmly draped the blanket over Natasha's shoulders. "I know you don't want that." As reluctant as he was to admit it, even to himself, he did not either. There were only so many people he could treat, only so many monsters he could fend off. Natasha was better at both by far, if he was being honest, and kidding himself about his own capabilities would do the people of Grado no service at all.

"How long do you suppose it might take a wyvern to fly from Frelia to here?"

"Assuming there are no delays, I wouldn't imagine it would be more than a week or two. Wyverns are hardy and need little rest-"

"_Cormag_ would."

With the way Cormag tended to fly, Knoll doubted rest for him would change his estimate much. He gave a lopsided shrug and fiddled with the candlestick rather than face the conversation again.

"I can't imagine he's too far away. Our trip to the capital should have given him enough time to catch up." Cormag would return, and then they would all head out to continue their work – hopefully with the relief offered by Frelia's aid, at least. Knoll considered asking Natasha is she had heard yet from Jehanna, or if she had even sent word at all.

_I don't wish to beg,_ she'd said before. As if she thought they still had the luxury to refuse such things.

Natasha nodded slightly in the corner of Knoll's vision. He tried to pretend as if the wax rolling down the side of the candle was more interesting, though he was sure he was not as convincing as he might have liked to be. Natasha said nothing to the effect. It was generous of her, he thought. Perhaps she'd be generous enough to _leave_.

He had no such luck.

"I've. . .been wanting to ask you something. For some time."

"Hm?" For the sake of courtesy, Knoll turned back to her, only to quickly regret it as the same bubble of wax he'd been watching dripped onto his finger. He hissed a curse and tried to shake it off in a manner he was sure was anything but dignified. To her credit, Natasha didn't laugh. She didn't even crack a smile.

"Had you not been imprisoned. . .had you been given the chance to stay at Prince Lyon's side. . .you would have, am I correct?"

_That would explain it._ Suddenly, he could barely feel the burn at all.

The thought had occurred to Knoll before. Of course, he had no love for war. Of course, he would not have stood idly by and allowed it to happen. Of course, he would not have clung to his prince's side and hoped, somehow, that he could undo the damage he'd allowed. Peace could not be worth trading away for the sake of a slim chance at saving one person. He would have known that, surely–

His throat felt dry and tight. He forced down a swallow. "I can't say for sure."

"You _would_ have, wouldn't you?"

He wasn't like Duessel. His loyalty had never been to anything _higher_. He could not place his faith in the abstract Grado the way the general could, for the land itself meant nothing. "I can't say for sure," he repeated, more firmly, despite the sinking sensation settling into his gut reminding him of what a liar he was.

But Natasha, perfect, _holy_ Natasha, likely couldn't say much more for herself. _You would have stayed, too, had you not known. Had you not been told. You never saw anything for yourself. _

It was hardly fair to hold such things against her. He had to remind himself of it to force his tongue to still, but it was true. She didn't even seem to be judging him, for a change. If anything, when he looked up from the worn toes of her boots to her face, he thought he saw a hint of pity. She wore nearly the same expression she saved for the sick, the dying, the people she'd mention in her prayers at night. That only made it worse.

"Please, don't look so concerned." She was still all nestled up in the blankets, evidently having overcome her previous objections. "I'm not angry. I didn't come here to scold you."

Knoll was finally out of patience. "Then why _did_ you come?" he snapped, stepping closer. "I believe we said all that needed to be said last time- or do you just intend to dig at me until I confess everything and go off to live the life of a penitent?"

The outburst was unwarranted. He knew full well it was, and Natasha's visible wince only served as a harsh reminder. It didn't help matters at all that he'd considered it countless times. What right did he have to try to set Grado back on the path to glory, when his own hands had helped shove it off in the first place?

To his surprise, Natasha did not simply get up and leave. He would have himself. Instead, she reached out and took his hand, giving it the same sort of gentle squeeze he'd seen her use to soothe so many sick and dying people along the way through Grado's countryside. She likely thought of him the same way she thought of all those people: helpless, sad, pitiful. He couldn't stand the thought.

"Because I thought. . . it might help to know for certain that you had doubts, as well."

She tugged ever so slightly to bring him closer, as if afraid a more forceful pull would tear his wounds open once more. He obliged and sat carefully by her side, watching as she pushed the blankets off and turned to face him. She wasn't shivering anymore, but she was eying him with an odd curiosity that made him feel as if he'd started shaking in her stead.

"It's not for me to say, but. . ." She slipped her hand free of his and let it fall to her lap. "I do. . . wonder sometimes, how we'll ever help everyone. Even if the funds from Frelia come in, even if there are more reinforcements, I just. . . this is never going to be the same Grado again, is it?"

Knoll shook his head. "That much has been obvious for some time. But simply because it won't be the same doesn't mean we can just let it stay as it is now. People cannot live like this." The words did not sound like his own. He felt as if he were reading aloud from an unfamiliar book, reciting something he'd barely rehearsed. Natasha did not seem to notice; he thought it might have been because it was what she thought she wanted to hear.

"I know." She nodded, as if to herself. " I know that. Of course I do."

"It's hard, nonetheless. Even if you know."

He heard her sigh, and felt her body shift downward as the air escaped her. "If we keep going until Grado is as it should be, we'll be working at this at this until we're dead."

_I've nothing else to do with my life_, he thought, but didn't say that. Instead, he reached for her hand, quickly, before she could pull it out of his grip. She didn't even try once he had it– to his surprise, she latched on tight, weaving her roughened fingers between his own. "We cannot do it all ourselves. Grado must also rebuild itself. No one can do it all."

She leaned in slightly, and for just a moment, the light from the candle caught in her hair, setting it more silver than gold. The slouch in her shoulders, the resignation in her light sigh, the way her gaze remained fixed at the toes of her shoes, rather than at him– it was all too familiar. He lifted his free hand and hesitantly ran his fingers through the ends of her still-damp hair, hoping it would somehow set her worries at ease, if only for a little while, as he had thought it might help his prince so many years previous.

"I'm sorry," Natasha murmured, and Knoll allowed himself to imagine that the apology was for his sake.

The mead must have dulled his thoughts more than he'd anticipated, for he couldn't say when it was that his hand traveled to the delicate line of her jaw, or that her own fingers became entwined in the mess of his hair, or who it was who moved in first for the kiss. But he could almost ignore the sudden lurch in his stomach at the taste of her, at the sensation of her drawing him closer and pressing his back into the bed, if he closed his eyes and tried to stop _thinking_. Despite the sense that he'd betrayed someone by it, that was exactly what he chose to do.

* * *

The cold air bit at Cormag's ears as he clenched his legs tighter around Genarog's back and gave the signal for the wyvern to begin the descent. Genarog responded immediately to the light prod of his rider's heels and spread his wings wide, allowing them both to glide downward, out of the clouds, allowing Cormag to catch a better view of the land below in the dim morning light.

He'd seen the capital city from above many times before – the first time as a mere child, on a different beast, latched tight to the back of an experienced rider. It was different, then – there'd been a certain magic to the city that must have come out only when viewed through the lenses of youth. Of course, it was no longer the same city. The buildings he could count from high above so many years before were rearranged, ruined, or gone entirely, and a great rift scarred the landscape around it. But somehow, though he could see so much more of the wreckage, it was easier to take from the sky. As high up as he was, he couldn't see the faces of the people left behind, or imagine the voices of those he'd lost expressing their dismay.

And dismay, they'd surely have. He hadn't expected Frelia to be especially generous, but he'd hoped for a bit more than they'd offered. A request to Rausten to send more clergy to fend off the remaining monsters, and a promise that their military would stand by Reims should a rebellion gain strength, but as expected, they could not spare much at the present time.

_Frelia is still rebuilding_, their young king had said, his voice as terse as Cormag remembered it from the war. _I wish the best for Grado, and am glad for our repaired bonds, but this is all I can offer_. He seemed better suited to kingdom than Renais' prince had seemed, more like how Cormag recalled Vigarde than anything else, despite the feeling as if he was forcing himself to be diplomatic at times.

"At least we got a bit, eh?" Cormag murmured to Genarog, not for the first time. In response, his mount just snorted.

More than the support, Cormag was glad for having not been offered the pity he'd expected from their princess. Perhaps she could have wrangled more out of her brother, but it was likely she would have asked questions, too. _Are you well? Will you stay? Will you come back? When will I see you again? _

It was uncomfortable to consider, let alone contemplate at length. Not that she bothered him, but that he knew he might have taken her up on the offer. Cormag gripped the reins tighter and shook the thoughts off, focusing instead on the landscape growing closer and closer as he made his descent.

_I can't abandon Grado now,_ he reminded himself. _Not again_.


End file.
